Intuition- Good but a little less would have been better

When Jamie Foxx’s last CD “Unpredictable” dropped in 2005, I waited several months before I even listened to it. I said I would wait until at least 5 people said it was good or decent and then I would listen. I think this was a direct result of the memories had of first CD “Infatuation”. Yeah that’s right Unpredictable was not his first CD, his first one came out in 1994. He was fresh off of In Living Color and not yet a movie star, so it was hard to take him seriously as an R&B artist. To make matters worse, one of my boys would always want me to play the CD (tape back then) in my car. I was a teenager at the time pumping Biggie and Wu-Tang so this request always seemed a little gay but I listened to it anyway. There were a couple of good songs on there but mostly weak songs with terrible production. He didn’t have the heavyweight producers beating down his door back then. Anyway, I gave Unpredictable a listen and really liked it. I thought Foxx and Kanye made a great team and he held his own on the other tracks. So I was definitely anticipating his new CD “Intuition”.

“Just Like Me” sounds like it could have been a leftover from Unpredictable but in a good way. It’s a song that grows on you and it seems like whatever T.I. jumps on instantly becomes hotter these days. I was also feeling “I Don’t Need It”, even though it sounds like a poor man’s “Sexy Back” it still sounds different than the average R&B heard on the radio. As an added bonus I spent 5 minutes trying to figure out whether they were saying the word Bitch in the chorus. I’m getting really tired of hearing LiL Wayne ……wait I’m lying, I’m not tired of hearing LiL Weezy so I enjoyed “Number One” also. I think it had more to do with Just Blaze’s production and less to do with Weezy and Foxx’s faux rap/singing. The next three songs: “Digital Girl”, “Blame it” and “She’s Got Her Own” are all hits. Kanye rips it on Digital girl and Blame it is already a club banger. I hope Ne-Yo is getting paid for Foxx taking his She Got her Own remix because it’s not on Ne-Yo’s weak CD and it probably could have helped. It appears that the second half of the CD is dedicated to slow jams. I wasn’t feeling “I Don’t Know”, “Freaking Me” and “Slow”. The last two sounded like a songs that Silk would have done in the mid 90’s. One of my favorite tracks has to be “Overdose”, almost everyone can relate to the feeling of jonesing too hard for one person and feeling like you're dependent. A good smack in the face and a “what the f**k is wrong with you”, usually cures that feeling….At least for me. Anyway, although I’m not a big fan of The Dream, I do think he is a good producer and definitely blessed Foxx with some hot tracks. I think Jamie Foxx would have been smarter to cut down on some of the tracks, maybe to about 11 or 12 and the CD would have felt like a banger from beginning to end.

Universal Grind Control

Common is back a year and half after he made his last CD “Finding Forever”, which I thought was a good but suffered a little bit from Kanye West’s heavy production hand. It had mix of mid 90’s Common sprinkled with some party Common and a side consciousness. His new CD “Universal Mind Control” let’s you know right out the gate that Common is ready to get his b-boy/club banger swag on. With the booming base of the famous Africa Bambabata sample followed by the chorus “this is that new shit”, I immediately wanted to start popping and locking. This song took me back to the “Planet Rock” days and one summer cookout in particular in which my grandmother had me go get her a beer inside neighbor’s house. It was night time and there were about 100 African masks hanging on the wall inside, waiting to scare the shit out of me while “Planet Rock” is blasting through the speakers. I ran through the house like Usain Bolt at the Bejing Olympics. Anyway, it’s also clear that Common is not campaigning for writer of the year with lyrics like “My uh is in you body, my uh is in you mind/check my dictionary, that ass is so defined” on Punch Drunk Love featuring Kanye. Thankfully Kanyeezy spares us the pain of listening to him sing with the autotune machine. I’ll give a run down of the other songs I like on the CD: “Make My Day” featuring the always underrated Cee-Lo, “Sex for Suga” the title speaks for itself , “Announcement” featuring Pharrel was a 2 or 3 listen song before I liked it and “Gladiator” old school CommSense crushing you in your f**king head!

The CD drags a little towards the second half of the CD, “Changes” got quick skip, “What a World” and “Everywhere” sound like a new wave/pop mix but I figured there would be a couple of throwaways. I guess it comes down to whether you like Neptune’s production and whether you like Common a little lighter on the consciousness. For me the answer is yes and sort of. I’ve always enjoyed The Neptunes and they’ve toned it down a bunch since the NORE “What What” days. And I believe Common has a lot more B-boy in him than Mr. Crochet pants, so I don’t think he’s selling out at all. He’s just showing another side of his personality just
like anyone of us would do.

Kanye West- 808's and Sleeping Pills

For my first blog entry I’ve decided to review Kanye West’s latest CD (I usually say “album” but I’ve decided to use CD in this blog for the readers who haven’t found at least one strand of gray in their hair yet), anyway I chose Kanye’s 808’s and Heartbreaks for my first album because he’s been a lightning rod of controversy over the last couple of years and people can’t seem to get enough. And I’m also a fan. The big question everyone had was “Is Kanye really going to use the autotune machine for an entire CD”? The answer is yes and to answer your other question before you ask it: IT SUCKS! It starts off slow and depressing with “Say You Will”. It’s bad enough that he’s whining about a girl playing games with his heart but you realize quickly that the autotuned Kanye is going to be a problem. Some of the words are not understandable and his voice makes T-Pain’s voice sound like Luther Vandross. At least Kanye uses his regular rap voice for “Welcome to Heartbreak” over a nice little Drummer boy rat-tat-tat-tat beat…..Oh wait, hear comes autotune Kanye for no apparent reason ruining the already drepressing song. “Heartless” is the first actual head nodding song with backround production sounding similar to an in his prime doctor Dre, which makes you forget about the autotune for a while. “Amazing” continues the head nodding and finishes with a strong performance by Young Jeezy. Say what you want about Jeezy but on big time collabo projects he brings it, like in the verse I’m Amazing/ Born on a full moon/ I was bread to get in/No spoon. Yeeeeaaaaaaaah!

And that’s where the “fun” ends, more autotune and depression follows. I don’t care what anyone says “Love Lockdown” sucks, I don’t want to have to wait every other 45 seconds for the bass to kick in. Now if I’m in the club and I’ve had a couple drinks, I’m going to be nodding my head like the dudes from that Saturday Night Live sketch and Pepsi commercial, pretending I know the words… “Paranoid” was the only other song I liked on the CD, probably because Mr. West uses his normal rap voice for part of the song….Did I mention autotune and depression were heavily involved in the rest of the CD? That and a bit of screaming from Lil Wayne. Some people will say at least Kanye took a chance and did something different but this shit doesn’t apply. I liked the chances he took on Graduation with “Stronger”, “Drunky Hot Girls” etc. but I don’t need any extra depressing thoughts in my life; being married, having weird friends and dealing with this economy crisis is depressing enough thank you! Here’s hoping Kanye finds the new love of his life in this new year and gets back to over the top stunting that we all love.