Erykah Badu: C /D, S&D

yeah i'm the same way as Brainwasher w/ those 2 songs, the overly familiar samples make 'em feel like filler that just comes and goes imo

also feel a lot less jazzed about "Agitation" after learning it's another beatjack, rockism or whatever be damned

get munny is one of those tracks it'd be cool to hear her bust out unexpectedly at a show, but on an album, yeah, it seems pointless. the striplin version is better.

i didn't realize how much of a beatjack get munny is! at least they replayed it.

'agitation' doesn't bother me, since her vocal melodies for it are totally new.

"agitation" is a sample? damn that is kind of disappointing... I dunno, when it comes to artists like Badu and the whole soulquarian movement I feel a certain type of way when I hear about their use of samples. Like, when I found out about all of the samples/interpolations on Voodoo... it's probably because they present themselves as "bringing back that real authentic musicianship" or what have you..

"agitation" is the shit tho, should be longer

i dunno, the album is great of course but there are 3-4 tracks that I skip

An album is not "great" if you skip three or four tracks, or maybe your scale is different than mine.

especially when the album's twelve cuts long.

well, I think the other tracks make up for the ones that I skip... "out my mind, just in time" may be my favorite badu song ever.

What about when a two-volume album with 23 cuts has only four or five skips? That's Key of Life territory there.

how many songs are sample-based on voodoo, like two?

xp

Ha -- I skip more than five tracks on Key of Life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_of_life

?estlove broke it down on okp a while back, I think "spanish joint" and "send it on" are interpolations, "devil's pie" is a sample, and some others.. supposedly most of the album is just replayed dilla beats or something like that.

"feel like makin' love" is a cover

yeah, but it's a totally different take on the song, much different from the roberta flack version... and the marlena shaw version.

huh, i never heard that. trying to re-create his feel via moving shit around in pro tools, sure. but even if they were trying to recreate beats that dilla cut up from other soul albums, i don't see how that's much different from the normal process of listening to those records and then writing tunes in the style. the melodies on voodoo are mostly original and the sound of the record as a whole is unique.

xp

yeah definitley, I'm not hating on Voodoo at all (one of my all-time favorite albums), I'm just saying that when I first found out I was a little disappointed.

Ha -- I skip more than five tracks on Key of Life.

I can't help you.

And I knew you'd say that, too.

Return of the Ankh > Key of Life.

Sorry all.

My basic outlook to Soulquarians and samping is "who cares"? I don't envy you who have hangups over this at all.

xp loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool

like, that is too audacious to even be called a challenging opinion

I mean I get that Key of Life isn't this all killer-no filler bomb, but it's highs are like the empire state building to compared to Ankh's portaloo.

Sure he was joking though heh

typo *its, gah

100% certain ilxor is not joking, which is fine in and of itself, but opinions like that tend to go over better when they are not delivered in a rhetorical style that implies an unwritten "now taste my ass"

I"m not quite sure I trust the opinion of someone who thinks this is better than Part 1 or Mama's Gun, let alone Songs in the Key of Life.

now i taste ass

Sure he was joking though heh

Not joking... but I'm not saying it as some kind of objective quality judgment for all time's sake, just my own preference. I've heard Key of Life a number of times, it's dandy, sure, but I know which I'd rather have with me on a desert island.

delivered in a rhetorical style that implies an unwritten "now taste my ass"

you are high 24/7, right

hi dere, tell me how my ass taste

tastin ass takin names

Return of the Ankh could stand to taste like ass a little bit more than it does tbh.

i think kind of in the same way that 'out of my mind, just in time' is more than the sum of its individual parts - perhaps even just by virtue of the fact that it is a constructed suite, that extra element of craft alone - so you could argue that stuff like 'get munny' and 'fall in love' play fine roles in the dialogue of the album as a whole. (ie like those were the tracks i had in mind in particular when i said above i thought it was all gonna be somewhat half-assed, but in context i love them now.)

It's still no "Green Eyes."

Yes it is.

Or as close as matters.

We'll always disagree on the hermeneutics of long-form blacksong, I see.

rtc otm, "get munny" to me is not so much a song as a hiccuppy, loose-ended funk parade that just strolls through the middle of the album.

We'll always disagree on the hermeneutics of long-form blacksong, I see.

Return of the Ass (Taste)

New AmErytastemyass

^^^ would have paid for those bootlegs.

Mama's Ass.

I'm just now listening to Return of the Ankh on YouTube...I've lost my job lately and just don't have the $$$ to spend on CDs...and I refuse to d/l another Badu album...I don't care how high they're hitting on the Billboard 200, it just doesn't seem right...

anyways, this album kind of surprises me, I thought it wz going to be a lot more like Mama's Gun, but it's different...funkier as opposed to MG's smoldering (nu)soul...haven't heard WWU; is it similar to that album?...

I really like it so far.

i'm loving umm hmm actually, tho all this talk about samples makes me feel a little guilty about it -gulp!-

someone please explain to me why it's okay for, say, every other R&B/soul singer under the sun to sing over samples but when Erykah Badu does it, ppl start rending their garments

because the stuff without obvious samples feels so original and homemade i guess? tbh most modern R&B doesn't have a lot of samples anymore anyway, and when it does it's more like a 2 bar loop with hard drums, hip hop-style, than the kind of vamping she's doing, but yeah we might be getting into a silly double standard here.

if anything "Get Munny" has to get past a wall of "this just reminds me of that Biggie song and you're not adding that much to it" resistance from me because of Ashanti type jacks.

because people hold Erykah to a higher standard and regard her as an artiste? cause she seems like one of the few RnBers capable of--and willing to--creating something fresh and new?