Reviews
Korede Bello’s Popstar Transformation, Ready To Dominate Once More – “Real Man” Review
Korede Bello’s Popstar appeal becomes a fuller expression on “Real Man”, a song where Bello’s artistic brightness as a pop star comes alive stronger through his alluring lyrical demeanor to his exotic delivery that opens up like an actor who’s on some sort of deliberate transformation in the music industry. “Table For Two”, his last year project quickens the transition’s initial phase – from his sparky and tenders to look Jeri-curl hair, to his recent good looking low cut and, gold color-tinted hair which makes him a more manly look with well-deserved broad appeal as it portrays through his music and everything it represents from his previous project. RELATED: Rema Is Creatively Damned: “Bounce”, The Review Well, with his recent single “Real Man”, lies strong conformity of his pop star ill...
Nick Cave & Warren Ellis Offer a Tender Glimpse of Hope on the Beautiful Carnage: Review
The Lowdown: In 1997, Nick Cave sang about a “Kingdom” whose light was so bright that “All the world’s darkness can’t swallow up/ A single spark.” On The Boatman’s Call, Cave yearned for this kingdom through a mist of tears born from what he’d later call “a convergence of events that felt so calamitous at the time that I could not find a way to write about anything else.” In the midst of a similarly calamitous convergence of events in 2020 — when it felt impossible to think on anything but widespread sickness, white supremacy, and the fractured state of our society — Cave found himself drawn yet again to the pursuit of this kingdom of light. Carnage, Cave’s new record alongside longtime Bad Seed and soundtrack collaborator Warren Ellis, beautifully and devastatingly documents their pursuit...
Rema Is Creatively Damned: “Bounce”, The Review
On “Bounce”, Rema is sick and damned creatively – Don Jazzy is the record producer that should be held responsible. “Bounce” is a very strong record built with the popular, notable South African Ampiano sound and Nigerian Afro-beat fusion interlocking, between. Don Jazzy created a stint and left his record label signee Rema, to fully extricate; as he got along into the sonic glider he was given (beats) and then he flew smoothly to an abyss, like in a place where he was creatively damned. RELATED: Naira Marley: Finds Love That Might Reform Him – “Chi Chi”, The Review Well, his previous 2020 single “Peace Of Mind”, also was like a place of Rema’s solace where he deliberately creates art from his inside to amplify the situation in the outside world, his from. “Peace Of Mind” sturdily correlat...
Redman, Method Man, and H.E.R. Join D’Angelo’s Verzuz in a Celebration of Live Music: Review
For music lovers, the COVID-19 pandemic effectively put an end to live performances for the foreseeable future. Many venues across the country have temporally (or permanently) closed or now operate with capacity restrictions. Never again will we take for granted the sweet simplicity of being able to catch our favorite artist/band in concert. But one of the few positive things to happen for live music during all the insanity that has taken place over the last year and counting is the emergence of the Verzuz series. Curated by super producers Timbaland and Swizz Beatz, who dueled in the first battle last March, Verzuz gave fans a lifeline as we sat at home watching our favorite producers and singers reminisce about the creation of their classic songs, many of which have defined hip-hop and R...
Glitterer’s Life Is Not a Lesson Is an Existential, Idiosyncratic Party
The opening lyrics to Glitterer’s sophomore studio album Life Is Not a Lesson sound as if they’re straight from an old philosophical text written in miniature poems: “In between a thought and being / Try to rid myself of feeling / Want to be objective, true / A body’s got nothing to prove.” But that’s just how Ned Russin — the face behind the whole project, and the ex-Title Fight member — is, especially after getting his Master’s in creative writing at Columbia University. Even the title Life Is Not a Lesson reads like a chapter from an antiquated novel. It’s a funny phrase, especially coming from someone in his early 30s. Glitterer, in many ways, seems to follow Russin through his contemplations, and this record transparently communicates his current confusion. “I’ll never know / Just how...
Naira Marley: Finds Love That Might Reform Him – “Chi Chi”, The Review
Marlians president, Naira Marley, finds himself on a special sonic path that leads the way as a character in between, finding the love of his life after he settled for-long term street creations. He finds love in between and goes emotional, off his regular explicit-y. Marley has released and performed highly contagious records that replicate not even an atom of manner from a presentation that strongly stake and cakes in average Nigerian youth’s mind in their mass, and have totally driven them both male and female, to cling n*ked fun, embracing vanity in folds and hedonistic lifestyle at its maximum height, relatively. Naira Marley, deliberately shoves down records that makes the average youth who might strongly connect his art, want to partake like in his explicit music visuals and so...
Julien Baker Embraces the Darkness on Little Oblivions
When Julien Baker toured in support of 2017’s delicately devastating Turn Out The Lights, her audiences stood suspended in time. No cheers or sing-alongs, just several hundred bodies frozen in arrest, observing the solo songwriter as she wailed tunes of broken love, tattered faith and crumbling mental health. While much of Baker’s new LP, Little Oblivions, hits similarly soul-ravaging notes, its accompanying stage show — whenever it comes — will be forced to liven up, emboldened by the ripe drum samples and swirling synth that drive the Memphis artist’s new sound. Hell, people may even dance! The robust arrangements, plucking from modern rock and Americana, do well to mask what is easily Baker’s most candid, heartrending lyricism yet — an unflinching gaze into the mirror, with ...
BTS Bring the Fire and Set the Night Alight on MTV Unplugged: Review
Talkin’ ‘Bout My Generation: Recently, there’s been a growing divide between millennials and gen-z: side parts and skinny jeans are out. Different emojis are in. End up on the wrong end of the divide, and you’re in a tough spot. MTV Unplugged feels much more associated with the millennials, first airing in 1989 and rising to prominence in the ‘90s, ushering in many performances that have since become the stuff of legend. In 1992, Eric Clapton’s Unplugged album became the best-selling live album of all time. Mariah Carey’s episode marked a shift in her public reception and launched her cover of “I’ll Be There” to No. 1. MTV as a whole now often feels associated with a nostalgic time of TRL, flannels, and Blockbuster, but rest assured, millennials — if BTS is doing it, it’s still cool. The m...
Sean Tizzle’s Sonic Viscosity Is One Of A Kind, “Where You Been EP” Review
Sean Tizzle’s “Where You Been” EP, is a project that substantially surprises Tizzle’s detractors, and perhaps his core listeners; he took them to a place like a museum in my imagination that houses beautiful self-made artifacts of his art that he carefully refurnished and called in-his core fans to witness and left detractors as he awes them unapologetically. “Moving Forward EP” in 2017, was Sean Tizzle’s laid-back project that almost generally accompanied outstanding features in the delivery of the classic African pop records. Sean Tizzle fast-tracked from 2017 to 2021 as he delivered 2-Extended Play in which his most recent project dives in-between “Moving Forward EP” and his debut studio album, “The Journey” in 2014. RELATED: Teni & Davido Are Meant For Each Other “For You” Review “...
DHQ reorganises operations to tackle security challenges
The Defence Headquarters has said it is reorganising operations across theatres toward tackling security challenges in the country. Coordinator, Defence Media Operations, Maj.-Gen. John Enenche, disclosed this while giving update on the operations of the armed forces across the country yesterday in Abuja. Enenche said the recent changes in the leadership of the armed forces would usher in new modus operandi for tackling security challenges in the country. He said the service chiefs on assumption of duty, immediately hit the ground running, by conducting operational visits to the North East. “In line with the re-organisation of the armed forces of Nigeria with the appointment of new service chiefs, the operations of the armed forces are equally being reorganised to tackle security challenge...
FX’s Hip Hop Uncovered Is a Powerful Watch: Review
The Pitch: Far too often, the history of hip-hop is condensed to make its origins more palatable for younger fans. Black folks in New York — downtrodden by systems that perpetuated poverty, racism, and police brutality — pioneered a form of creative expression meant to give a platform to their pain. However, FX’s Hip Hop Uncovered explores the genre’s complexity. More importantly, it analyzes rap music in a sociopolitical context. From slavery to the destruction of Black Wall Street to the war on drugs to the Black Lives Matter movement, Hip Hop Uncovered reminds viewers of the brutal American history that has always worked to violate and abuse Black people. It also demystifies some of rap’s most prominent figures who were pivotal in the careers of artists like Nipsey Hussle, Nicki Minaj, ...
On TYRON, slowthai Looks in a Cracked Mirror
TYRON, the sophomore album of UK rapper Tyron Frampton—aka slowthai—takes the scathing perspective of his debut, Nothing Great About Britain, and turns it on himself. Even as he searches through a turbulent childhood and a sudden rise to fame for jewels of wisdom, slowthai keeps his brash satire and disregard for public standards. Also returning are his broad ear for production along with the diverse talents of Kwes Darko, Kelvin Krash, and SAMO. Ty enters the album as a familiarly chaotic figure: “45 SMOKE” is a hard-edged opener on a sinister-sounding beat reminiscent of the disembodied chanting on Big Sean’s “Control,” and he closes its first verse by declaring “The world is mine.” This much cockiness is to be expected from the artist who, since the release of his first album in 2019, h...
