K. Michelle

most amazing new(ish) voice in r&b right now y/y. she's been doing so much this year. valentine's day mixtape still no fucks given like a victory lap and her remix of "loyal" is one of the most essential songs to any discussion of misogyny in pop this year

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtZmwF7WEFw

then an idris elbra-directed half-hour musical of her debut album just because. solidarity with strippers and sidechicks is becoming her thing, and a really important thing in the current climate. the whole thing is on this youtube account http://www.youtube.com/user/Roro770221/videos

and sooner than i'd expected her second album in a couple of weeks - it's excellent. lead single is another riposte to "loyal"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMTEqvYBbMc&list=UUx5Tqy7lZgSj8NLocGgYZ6g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J6IcvdsKrs&list=UUx5Tqy7lZgSj8NLocGgYZ6g

(i think she deserves her own thread now)

"love 'em all" is so great

"why can't they understand / sex is irrelevant" is such a bold lyric to put in the hook of your lead single (even without following it with "just a game that i'm playing and i'm winning"

I bought Rebellious Soul around this time last year and expect to be rocked again.

most amazing new(ish) voice in r&b right now

did someone reboot you

Eager to hear the follow-up to Rebellious Soul. What I really loved about her debut is that she really throws herself into the worlds and characters of her songs - not just with bizarre yet human lyrics but with such a strong, lived-in voice. Maybe it's just her playing up to the role she had on Love & Hip-Hop: Atlanta but she comes across as likeably unhinged.

stream! http://www.rap-up.com/2014/12/01/k-michelle-anybody-wanna-buy-a-heart-awbah-album-stream/

"cry"!

YOU GON SUFFER
YOU GON SUFFER

this album is so good

GOD I GET IT
I'M A MESS AND I ADMIT IT
I KEEP LEARNING THE SAME LESSONS WHILE I'M MISSING OUT ON BLESSINGS

"going under" is EPIC

lol 'newish'?

'love em all' is fire tho

excited for the album. how many songs on it are secret supposed ripostes to "Loyal"?

just "love 'em all" (the first riposte was her remix of it)

new(ish) because she released her debut album just over a year ago and i think she should have her own thread

shes like a year younger than me and signed to jive in '09!

i was joking, "love em all" is a good song but it is not in any way a "loyal" subtweet c'mon

k. michelle is so much bigger last year/this year than she was before that sometimes i feel like success reboots where someone's career "begins," i think it's fair to say she's a new star on the R&B landscape

no she's actually said "love 'em all" is a riposte to "loyal"!

old ppl can release debut albums too deej

This is a very good album. Michelle's voice is so sturdy that it can stand up to bulky production that I think would overpower or drown out a lot of other singers, and this record really takes advantage of that. "Going Under" and "Something About The Night" are early standouts for me.

"going under" is EPIC

― lex pretend, Tuesday, December 2, 2014 7:51 AM (2 days ago)

Yeah, this is a great song.

"How Do You Know?" is straight-up a country song.

Sounds like a big R&B ballad to me.

just listened, pretty impressed. even "drake would love me" which i thought would be a mess is actually kinda beautiful and moving.

xp yeah its a big ol whitneyesque torch song in the best way. (also the only song on the record so far where i can notice audible autotune, but, minor quibble.)

proceedings get a bit sappy at the end (esp. the closing track "god i get it.") but really good overall.

fever, re: yr. point about country, "god i get it" def has those leanings!

I haven't heard the whole stream yet, just the songs available on Spotify.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv01vpMj4zM

I can't believe we haven't spoken about how amazingly ridiculous she seems in her reality shows.

did not know they were a thing. will prob steer clear of that stuff tbh

the great thing about K. Michelle is that she's practically the only person on any of these shows whose personality actually comes out in her music

God I Get It is definitely a country song too. Just imagine How Do You Know? with a similar Nashville-ized arrangement. Totally a country song.

Also, this VH1 stream is about as secure as a car with the doors open and the keys in the ignition. Basically if you want to download the album for free, they're begging you to.

yeah it already leaked like...3 or 4 days ago I just didn't steal it

yet

omg i didn't realize how easily downloadable it is. and in pretty good quality too. lol. i am tempted but i think i will throw my money her way instead.

the Drake song is something else.

the drake song reminds me of ne-yo's "single" from the opposite perspective - it's as much about how we use ideals and fantasies of singers as about drake himself, and coming after "build a man" in which she actually calls out each of her exes specifically it's kinda devastating - there's this tension in all of her work between wanting to feel everything as hard as she can and this empirical certainty underpinning it all that men ain't shit, so by that stage of the album she's going full frankenstein then pure fantasy just to sustain the former. "god i get it" almost sounds like acceptance, a resolution of sorts, after that.

album's full of these quietly devastating lyrics sprinkled among the "I'D RATHER BE FUUUUUCKIIIIIIIING YOU" head-turning stuff, like that line on "maybe i should call" - "heart is feeling useless, probably should've used it less"

"judge me" is such a boom opener, makes me want to hear k michelle doing a bond theme

she's been pretty explicit about her country influences, when i interviewed her she said she wanted to do a full-on country album in the future

her fader interview is so good! http://www.thefader.com/2014/12/04/k-michelle-interview

I really wasn't expecting the country music influence to be so strong on this. I still miss the more bizarre eye-opening moments from her debut album but if it's a choice I'd much rather take the brutally honest confessions of this, there's so much specific detail here and even on the rare moments when the lyrics veer close to self-pitying cliche she delivers the lines with such conviction and belief that it seems unique to her own story.

Have become obsessed with the melody/synthbassline of "Love 'Em All".

jeezy feels like such a perfect counterpoint for the remix

i sort of don't want to hear a man on that song

thx dyl btw

quite amused by album offcut "oscar"

http://www.hotnewhiphop.com/k-michelle-oscar-new-song.1960490.html

xp my thoughts as well

omg this record

Lex, I knew nowt about K Michelle, but your great interview for the Fader (?) got me on to this. Fantastic album, and fantastic woman by the sound of it. Thanks man.

I think I fell in love with this record today.

its really, really good.

in some ways i think "drake would love me" is legitimately the emotional apex of it

agreed

this album is so beautiful. "miss you, goodbye" through the end especially. ugh. *plays again*

"Silhouette"!

wow, this drake song

she released this a week before Christmas last year and one of the stations in D.C. has been playing it a lot in the last week or two, would not it being an R&B radio holiday standard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0X9C6W43js

would not MIND it being etc.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/k-michelle-cant-escape-the-drama-but-at-least-she-still-makes-good-music/2014/12/11/491a3f88-8159-11e4-8882-03cf08410beb_story.html

review of the K. Michelle gig at the Howard Theatre in DC the other night

K. dished more specifics about the album itself than the man who inspired it. She told the packed house that she wanted a more eclectic sound for this album and had to tell her label, “You’re not gonna dumb down for my fan base and act like they can’t appreciate different kinds of music.”

Yes!

K. Michelle for president of music

this album is so powerful

think my favorite moment on this record is the false "human nature" quote on "something about the night"

album is so triumphantly sad

think my favorite moment on this record is the false "human nature" quote on "something about the night"

I hadn't picked up on this before until your post.

think my favorite moment on this record is the false "human nature" quote on "something about the night" every moment on this record.

also true

Had a friend over tonight for a glass of wine and a moan about her relationship woes and the problems with men and put this album on in the background. She had never heard of K. Michelle but was absolutely floored by the last two songs.

album is so triumphantly sad

― emo canon in twee major (BradNelson), Friday, December 12, 2014 3:17 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

This is my favorite type of K. Michelle, eager to check this album out

Thanks for posting the Christmas song, some dude. Was looking for some seasonal K. M earlier this month!

is that kellz as in r kelly she's singing about on the "build a man" intro? "there was kellz, he adored me / loved to hear me sing but controlled me."

last three tracks feel equally like a defiant victory lap and a breakdown

also as much as the point of k michelle is HOLLERING LOUDLY, she's secretly a pretty subtle singer when she wants to be - it's the way she knows the lines and words to bite down on for maximum impact, the way she lets her voice crack on "god i get it"...

also makes total sense that this album was all about one dude.

it's about Kellz Arry, the other mentor that wrote songs for her earlier in her career

and the next line is about Idris Melba Toast, one of a couple different British actors she's dated

lol

also as much as the point of k michelle is HOLLERING LOUDLY, she's secretly a pretty subtle singer when she wants to be

well yes, there are reasons we all like her more than Keyshia Cole

Wasn't really into her first album apart from the single but this new one is fantastic. The production is really incredible especially on Miss You, Goodbye which is my favourite so far.

this album just continues to kill me

Same here.

out of curiosity, looked up how this was doing on billboard charts & was kinda surprised to see only one song on only one singles/songs chart (hot r&b songs - "love 'em all" is #13). bc i can totally see some of these having radio longevity. suppose that speaks to how screwed up the radio formatting of r&b music is, as has been discussed w/ much greater eloquence elsewhere. the album itself is the #2 r&b album, which is cool.

in any event, goddamn this is still a powerhouse. "judge me," "how do you know," "maybe i should call" and "drake would love me" are my faves.

"Love Em All" is only in the 30s on the airplay chart, too. slowly gaining steam, though, and Rebellious Soul's 2nd single didn't hit radio until many months after the album's release, so I don't think they're releasing anything else just yet.

if his mama couldn't do it, what makes you think you can train that boy to be a man…it's too late…

devastating…

late to the party, but what a superb album from start to finish. thx ilx/lex

ILex

K. Michelle and Azealia Banks have announced they will be embarking on a very special 20-date tour across North America this fall. The co-headlining tour presented by CENTRIC and BET commences in Indianapolis on 09/15 and will make stops in Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, New York amongst many others, and wraps in Los Angeles on 10/15. Both artists will be performing tracks from their current albums – K. Michelle’s "Anybody Wanna Buy A Heartand" and Azealia Banks’ "Broke With Expensive Taste" – as well as fan favorites from previous releases. For a full list of tour dates, see below. Please check with your local venue for specific on-sale date and time.

NORTH AMERICAN TOUR DATES
09/15 - Murat Theatre - Indianapolis, IN
09/16 - Aragon Ballroom - Chicago, IL
09/17 - Fabulous Fox Theatre - St. Louis, MO
09/18 - Fox Theater - Detroit, MI
09/19 - Pier Six Pavilion - Baltimore, MD
09/20 - DAR Constitution Hall - Washington, DC
09/24 - The Mann Center for Performing Arts - Philadelphia, PA
09/25 - Hard Rock Live - Cleveland, OH
09/26 - Best Buy Theatre - New York, NY
09/27 - House of Blues - Boston, MA
09/30 - Carpenter Center - Richmond, VA
10/01 - nTelos Wireless Pavilion - Portsmouth, VA
10/02 - Chastain Park Amphitheatre - Atlanta, GA
10/03 - Palace Theatre - Louisville, KY
10/05 - Schermerhorn Symphony Center - Nashville, TN
10/09 - Bayou Music Center - Houston, TX
10/10 - Verizon Theatre @ Grand Prairie - Dallas, TX
10/12 - Ogden Theatre - Denver, CO
10/14 - Fox Theater - Oakland, CA (K.Michelle performing only)
10/15 - Microsoft Theatre - Los Angeles, CA

would have been there in a heartbeat :(

ha i think i will go to this :D

yah, i also think this is worth paying for

goddammit
http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/the-juice/6649233/azealia-banks-k-michelle-tour-canceled

nooooooo

Grrrrr

NEW ALBUM NEXT WEEK!!

it's called more issues than vogue!

the album cover looks like this

http://i2.wp.com/www.xclusivejams.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/6010f7ff0562e60d9f34d792fb3afbcd.jpg?w=474

“Sleep Like A Baby”
“I Got Rich People Problems”
“Time”
“All I Got”
“These Men”
“Nightstand”
“Make The Bed”
“If It Ain’t Love”
“Not A Little Bit”
“Aint You”
“Got Em Like… Damn”
“Mindful”

"not a little bit" is a brilliant single

“I Got Rich People Problems”

the original title was apparently i ain't white, but i hope you like

how is this woman not universally praised and lauded

disappointed she backed down from that title

I'm not crazy about "Not A Little Bit" -- sounds like okay Keyshia Cole -- but can't wait for the album.

"not a little bit" is melodically very satisfying to me, and the key change is terrific

the original title was apparently i ain't white, but i hope you like

This would've been about 1000% better.

This is great news, watching her battle to have her artistic integrity not compromised on her reality show is making me excited for what she's got up her sleeve on this one.

Every single person I introduce to her music becomes an instant fan, and not just in a casual way either.

omg the original title!

i'm so glad she has the freedom to release without necessarily needing a big single blanketing radio beforehand

album now coming out March 25, i like "Ain't You" more than the other single

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97Kjct8aieA

oh fuck yes

"I don't wanna be here"

I am beyond frustrated at the postponement of this but at least it will make for a good episode of My Life

http://www.ticketweb.com/t3/sale/SaleEventDetail?dispatch=loadSelectionData&eventId=6540385

Should i pay $85 for me and my girl to see this show y/n?

this album is wonderful. "mindful", what a vmic opener.

i love how her classicist leanings give us all these ornate arrangements and rub up against her never-appropriate lyrics

Yeah this album is great. Nightstand and Sleep Like a Baby are my favourites after my first play. Such lush production all the way through.

yeah "Mindful" is a banger.

"if it ain't love" is so immense

"make the bed" pretty much demonstrating she can do 80s teen romance synths as well as anyone else, i prefer it to anything on the CRJ album

80s teen romance
Yes, the way the album veers between this and (for want of a better word) adult soul balladry is wrong-footing in a really great way.

extremely cheap video is up for "not a little bit"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-P8XCX57vEc

oh oh oh oh ohhhh OH

On first listen I am not finding as many great cuts as 2014's Anybody Wanna Buy a Heart?, but I will listen to it again and again and see

This is a notch below Anybody Wanna Buy a Heart? imo. The song titles give the game away: a few generic cuts.

i don't know, i'm finding it a lot tighter than AWBAH - there's something more confident, more varied, more conducive to repeated listens so far. "not a little bit" and "if it ain't love" are some of the strongest radio melodies she's ever written. "mindful" is a strange choice of intro - it's a hoot but she doesn't follow through with anything else remotely like it so perhaps should've just been a bonus or interlude.

Those three are my favorites after "Make My Bed" and the extra track "Memphis."

*Make The Bed

Album is good. Getting serious Kci and jojo 'girl' vibes from 'all i got'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sto-6DphD-4

She's busy working the album:

Mar 31 FYE Philadelphia IN STORE Philadelphia, PA RSVP
Apr 01 The Mall At Prince George's (In Store) Hyattsville, MD RSVP
Apr 02 DTLR Camp Creek - In Store East Point, GA

i really like this album. T-Pain went the fuck in on the first two tracks.

I didn't know he had it in him anymore.

his last mixtape was good but he's really overdue to do more stuff like this in a writer/producer capacity with less novelty autotune

the derulo track is so derulo-wave

i love it so much

i know it's reductive to describe that set of sounds as "derulo-wave" but it's like exactly what i imagined when i saw "feat. jason derulo" in the tracklisting

I like the track but he's expendable. Like, her part's imaginative and vivid enough without needing to hear from the guy responsible for the bed making -- and that the guy's Jason Derulo.

he's expendable right, i barely even noticed him on it, i'm just talking about the sound alfred

Agreed.

I also thought of "Do What U Want."

their duet on Derulo's album would've been more at home on this album, and vice versa, but i suspect that's the point -- she gave him a song that helps him sound like a credible R&B singer, and he gave her something Top 40-friendly.

Apr 02 DTLR Camp Creek - In Store East Point, GA

Oh shit, that's like a mile from my house. I should go, right?

Did you go?

You had to buy a copy of the cd on release day and get a wristband, so no.

this is so good

you're welcome!

What an album. Both "All I Got" and "If It ain't love" hit seemingly cliche targets but the performance is so good they stand out as album highlights.

new album!

ugh a Chris Brown feature

i like kim k

the Chris Brown thing bewilders me, people like K Michelle have enough star power and talent that they shouldn't need his support and it just looks so brazenly desperate.

I haven't heard the album yet but I LOVE "Kim K" more than any of the other singles she's released this cycle. It's hilarious that all the chatter around it is "omg shots fired at the Karadashians" when the song is literally about how the media won't take her seriously for being the wrong type of black

my use of "wrong" there means wrong in the eyes of the class structures of society, not wrong as an intrinsic value judgement

I've got thoughts on that too: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/kimberly-the-people-i-used-to-know/

I appreciate any shade thrown at Migos and Future, but give a raised eyebrow at working with Chris Brown. Breaking even here, I guess.

<3 the dirty Vince Guaraldi Trio of "Fuck Your Man"

this album is phenomenal

rounds rounds rouuuuundsss

think i may need to try this again it did nothing for me on first listen. last two albums are personal classics for sure. looks like the chris brown song has been removed from spotify...

"Rounds" is one of the best tracks. I agree that it's her most blah.

i don’t! it’s got distinct chapters

It drags in the last third. I wanted an album's worth of "God, Love, Sex and Drugs" and "Alert."

The last third is where it picks up for me - the arrangements and sentiments are a little trite but she sings the hell out of them. The first half feels a bit of a mess to me, there's some great ideas and lyrics and her performance is flawless as ever but the melodies feel underwritten and she spends more time showing her voice than letting the hooks build.

This is still a good album from a great artist but I wasn't as blown away as I have been by her before.

This is still a good album from a great artist but I wasn't as blown away as I have been by her before.

^^^This

think she's got a new album coming out soon

there's a single getting played on the radio right now but unfortunately it's probably my least favorite thing i've ever heard from her

That would be “The Rain”, right? I like the previous one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE7mvhuc5R0
K. Michelle ft. Kash Doll & City Girls • Supahood

supahood is fucking great

oh yeah "supahood" is much better than "the rain"

I was blasting "God I Get It" on Tuesday.

i’m watching her on the soul train awards. album is called “all monsters are human.” she performed the new single in front of jam & lewis, who let her sample can you stand the rai

also she said she’s going to fight to knock down country’s boundaries

damn

she’s playing new york tomorrow

damn i hope her forays into country work out. "god i get it" for one is amazing

new album ALL MONSTERS ARE HUMAN out today:
https://smarturl.it/MonstersAreHuman

yes! Listening now.

queuing

man is she ever consistently underrated.

aw, this is reminding me i forgot to put Supahood on my top singles ballot. it's fucking great and maybe my favorite song from last year where it is socially unacceptable or me to sing along to the chorus.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PE7mvhuc5R0

based on this new record, it seems like KM has a perfect discography… the song U posts above is funny as fuck…

I dunno why we don't revive this thread every three weeks.

Happy birthday!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZQHq86bWOA

Been hooked on Ciara’s prayer this week

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6itsa9lbYYs

New album due this year? The new single scooch is good too

lol there's a "ciara's prayer" on summer walker's album too

i saw that last night. its... an actual prayer tho, and not a song.

apparently she did a full country performance at the bluebird cafe within the last week but i cant footage anywhere. i need to see it.

No chatter about the new album? It's vulgar and terrific as usual. I'm here for tracks titled "Wherever the Dick May Land."

seems like every month i re-fall in love with one of her songs, currently its sleep like a baby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59f6oEl8j4k

her phrasing on the chorus

shooould,
i wake,
you up,
and let,
you know,
im brea... king
ev...'ry
night
while you sleep like a baaaby