7 posts tagged “kanye west”
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06/04/09 Atlanta, GA The Loft
Discography
06/06/09 Columbia, MD Capital Jazz Fest 07/09/09 New York, NY BB Kings 07/10/09 Philadelphia, PA Keswick Theatre 07/13/09 London, England Jazz Café 07/14/09 London, England Jazz Café 07/16/09 Ghent, Belgium Jazz Festival 07/17/09 Copenhagen, Denmark Vega Jnr 07/18/09 Stockholm, Sweden Jazz Festival 07/19/09 Oslo, Norway Victoria Theatre 07/21/09 Koln, Germany Stadtgarden 07/22/09 Zurich, Switzerland Kaufleuten 07/23/09 Luxembourg Den Atelier 07/25/09 Nice, France Jazz Festival 07/26/09 Paris, France Trabendo 07/28/09 Hamburg, Ger Manderin Casino 07/29/09 Amsterdam, Netherlands Melkweg 07/30/09 Amsterdam, Netherlands Melkweg 08/09/09 Long Beach Jazz Fest, CA 08/12/09 Seattle, WA 08/13/09 Seattle, WA
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In a musical climate, that has made international stars of artists, and I use the term artists lightly like Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus. Its refreshing to come across someone as refreshing as Leela James. Hannah and Miley take note, if you want to know how to SING and stir people’s souls, listen to “Let’s Do It Again”.
For those of you reading this review and are unfamiliar with Leela James, this Los Angeles, California native and resident Houstonian has a voice that makes your heart take notice and makes chills run down your spine.
She may be an unknown to most of the music masses, but she has been involved in the music industry for some time. If you are a fan of hip hop, and the brilliant work of Pete Rock of Pete Rock & CL Smooth fame, you would have heard Leela’s voice as a feature vocalist on his 2004 release “Soul Survivors Part II” and she has toured as an opening act for The Black Eyed Peas and Macy Gray.
Leela, was signed by Ruff Nations Records shortly, that imprint had a distribution deal with Warner Brothers Records, but that label shortly folded and Leela was cast into the music industry’s black hole of artists that see their careers come to a sudden halt. Thankfully, Warner Brother’s was smart enough to realize they had a talent and in 2005 her debut album “A Change Is Gonna Come” was released. This project was executive produced by Commissioner Gordon, and featured production by Kanye West, Raphael Saadiq, Wyclef Jean, James Poyser and Chucky Thompson.
The success and positive press of this debut album, had kept Leela and her band on the road for three consecutive years, and contributed to her second release taking so long to be completed.
It’s rare for an artist to do something to creative and daring, but Leela’s decision to record this album completely live with her backing band was brilliant. This album of cover songs by artists as far ranging, as Angela Bofill, James Brown, The Rolling Stones, Phillis Hyman and Foreigner takes on a life of its own. Upon first listen, my first impulse was to turn up the volume. I am a huge fan of Foreigner, Lou Graham’s voice was an original and it took Foreigner to great heights in the 70s and 80s, but Leela James’ version of “I Want To Know What Love Is” is taken completely to church and the live arrangement manages to take this song to places that would make Mick Jones and Lou Graham quite proud.
“You will hear a variety of range as a vocalist,” Leela James said about what the listeners will find on the CD. “I love all kinds of music, if the song is good, it's good!”
There are many highlights on this album, but a special note should be made of Leela’s backing band. This group of musicians are air tight and in the pocket and they bring a flavor to the arrangements that truly bring out the best in Leela.
Some of the tracks on the album include The Rolling Stones’ “Miss You,” Angela Bofill's “I Try” and Bootsy Collins’ “I’d Rather Be With You.”, Al Green’s “Simply Beautiful and James Browns’ “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World”.
Just when I start to lose my faith in REAL SOUL MUSIC, I stumble across a project as emotionally stimulating as “Lets Do It Again” and I am reminded as to what music can do to stir the soul.
I encourage all music fans to listen to the wonderful CD and support this artist, because she is a hidden diamond, in a sea of crystallized glass.
04/21/2009 00:47:56 ♥ carl (
)
♥ www.leelajames.com
♥ myspace.com/leelajames
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As much as I hate the DRM on iTunes, this EP is only available through iTunes. If you have an iPod and likes funny Christmas songs this might be worth your while.
Guests includes Toby Keith, Elvis Costello, John Legend, Feist, Willie Nelson, and Jon Stewart. The John Legend song about Nutmegs has very sexual innuendos that's safe for the kids and fun for the adults. I was happy to see that W♥M favorites Elvis Costello made an appearance too!
Recently, Colbert declared war on Kanye West because his 808s & Heartbreaks is #1 while Colbert is at a respectable #16. So, I guess, "Operation Humble Kanye" will be on next Wednesday, December 5th at 5pm (eastern).
Since I actually block double-click, I couldn't actually view the video on comedycentral.com, so instead here is a clip via hulu.com:
* Before you dismiss this Christmas cash-in and Colbert's arrogance, this project is actually for a good cause, for the charity group Feeding America.
I know a lot of people just don't like the guy. I am not one of those people. I actually love Kanye West. I think he makes awesome beats and he's got (as my friend likes to say) flow. He's arrogant and an ego maniac and is notorious for throwing fits at award shows. All of that is uncool, I know this, but I like the guy. And when I heard is mom died, I felt for him too. I've lost my mom as well and I've known that pain for years. Almost my whole life, so I knew his next record was going to be a painful one. To make matters worse for the guy, his long time girlfriend/fiance` leaves him too. Ouch. I guess I knew what to expect from this record, especially when I first heard the first single come out. Love Lockdown. I've got to admit though, I was NOT fond of this single and grew a bit weary of what was to come. I'm not the type to go seeking out leaked albums and tracks so I waited patiently for the record to come out and waited for his performance on the AMA's, hoping he'd do a different single rather than the one I wasn't feeling as mentioned before. It was hard, I must admit, to wait for it; there weren't a lot of good things going on at the AMA's. Then I heard "Heartless" and I really liked it, so there was hope. At least that's what I felt. He performed the song so well and you could hear it in his voice, his heart is totally broken. So I've heard the album and yeah, it's full of pain. Almost every song feels like a total downer. It's just sad. It's not the Good Life, but his break out wasn't the Good Life. His break out song was "Through the Wire". THAT was a song made frome pain. Jesus Walks, that was a song not exactly of pain, but still had the same feeling. So he broke out and made the Good Life. You know, because life was good. Wellllll, life is not so good anymore and you can hear it. I picked the song "Welcome To Heartbreak." It's probably the best off the album. I'm not saying the album isn't good, it is. But I'm biased, and it's going to be an album I listen to when I'm sad. Like when I break out the Elliot Smith stuff, now I'm gonna be breakin' out this one.The album is also named after not only his hearbreak, but also the drum machine he used to make the album. He used a (or maybe a couple of) Roland TR 808. Very nice looking machine I must say. I think I might want one of those too! I just hope you enjoy the songs. Forgive me for my entries too; they aren't very well written. ^.^ Commence enjoyment!
The song features Kid Kudi. He's an up and comer from Chicago. Just like Kanye. From what I've heard, he's pretty dark sounding, but he's got quite a following it seems. I had seen a performance from a club he had done. He sampled the Ting Tings "Shut up and let me go" and people were eating it up! They loved it. I'm expecting great things from this dude. I think he's gonna be awesome. So keep an eye out for Kid Kudi! Sorry I didn't change the artwork too. It's just the same as the other. I should have put the picture of him in his grey PeeWee Herman suit, but it's my favorite off the record. And I'm not knockin' him for the grey suit either. I like it. So yeah, the record is out now, so go get it. Or don't it's fine. Alrighty, I'm out.
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Thanks to Bookishly Fabulous for pointing out that Ben Sollee was recently on NPR's "All Things Considered" (July 5, 2008).
It would be seem that Sollee is looking for a fight with Kanye West, who recently disappointed fans at Bonnaroo for being two hours late (performed at 4:30 am). He made national/internet news by blogging about the venue's inability to setup the lighting and Pearl Jam was already an hour late.
This "open letter" song to Kanye West basically tells off West that "you don't need a light show, just good flow".
You can read more about Ben Sollee on our previous W♥M articles.
Other interesting music news: Facebook's a hotbed of celebrity gossips. Lilly Allen and The Chemical Brothers' Ed Simon are back together. Apparently they both changed their facebook status to "in a relationship" and immediately thousand of fans wrote to congratulate them.
Björk seems to be canceling a few concerts, citing throat ailment. I'm not sure why that's so closely followed by the media, but Ex-Whitesnake guitarist is dead. Does anyone even know his name?
The outrageous headline of "Kylie Minogue Saves Fan from Suicide" makes it sound as if Minogue was there on the rooftop talking that person down. The truth is, the fan was listening to his iPod and her song came on and he suddenly didn't want to stab himself. (Lame, right?)
Also, some idiot stole the headstone to Joy Division's Ian Curtis' grave. I hope his ghost haunts him.
The sad news of the collector's mentality of the CD box sets are on its death bed (hint: maybe it's because it's too expensive). The Yahoo story (written by Ed Christman) paints a picture that "Boxed-set sales have fallen off the cliff; they went from something to nothing".
Even at price slashed to about $29.99 (from the regular $49.98), sales continues to decline. At the end of the article, they mentioned that the limited-edition box for Nine Inch Nails' "Ghosts I-IV," ($300) sold really well.
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Links:
weheartmusic.com
Labrador Records (labrador.se) once again turned to Pirate Bay to help distribute their Labrador Summer Sampler 2008. If you remember, they did the same thing last year after their servers crashed due to a high volume of demand.
If you already use BitTorrent, then downloading it from Pirate Bay is easy enough, but unlike most people, I don't use the torrents. Instead, I had to get the files from a friend. If you're in the same boat, regarding not using bittorrent, I have made the free sampler available for download: sendspace.com/file/2yaj76 (154 mb).
Please note: I am acting under the assumption that Labrador wants as many people to download their sampler as possible. So please share this with your friends.
Although compared to last year's massive 68-track-sampler, this year's new 30 tracks is smaller... but it is still a lot of music to listen to. Since we've covered many of these bands (see corresponding links to previous W♥M articles), I was more interested in the bands I hadn't heard of: Leslies, Caroline Soul, and Johan Hedberg. Although Leslies previously appeared on their 2007 Sampler ("Dear Friend"), this is the first time I paid attention to them due to their poppy "Take a Look" song.
01 [Ingenting] - Här Kommer Solen |
11 Chasing Dorotea - Dark Angel |
21 The Radio Dept. - Pet Grief |
In other news for this past week, we find Devo asking "Are We Not Toys?" after suing McDonald's for using their likeness in one of their McToys. CNN reports that "Kid Rock Was Only Kidding" when he told people to "steal everything". This tells me a lot about Kid Rock fans if he had to EXPLAIN that it was only a joke. Duh?
DMX is arrested (again), "Fly - The Musical", Adele won some awards and people seem to be happy she doesn't want to kill herself like Amy Winehouse, and you also found out that Kanye West LIKES TO TYPE IN ALL CAPS, DUDE! His defense blog on the whole Bonnaroo fiasco comes down to the venue's ability to setup the stage and that Pearl Jam was an hour late. That's right, Vedder is a slowpoke.
See links below for news source:
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Audio
[1] Information provided by wikipedia [2] Watch video on youtube |
It was just two years ago on this day (Aug 29th) that Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana. Katrina caused over $80 billion dollars in damages and took the lives of 1,800 people[1].
Shortly after the destruction, everybody (and I mean everybody) wanted to help Louisiana. One of the more memorable benefit concert for the fallout of Katrina was when Kanye West, live on national television, said:
George Bush doesn't care about black people.[2]
Although the broadcast was censored for the West Coast, the scene did make it out on the East Coast... and instantly made it on the internet.
Inspired by this, The Legendary K.O. recorded the internet-only song, "George Bush Doesn't Care About Black People". The song made this group known to over 2.5 million downloaders. Incidentally, the song was produced by Kanye West and Jon Brion.
One of the lesser-known effort was when Target, with all the major record labels, put together the benefit album Sound Response (2005). All the proceeds went to the Target Katrina fund, but unfortunately the CD was only sold through the Target chain stores.
I picked up this album to help out, but I mostly got it because of Radiohead's song, "Everything It Its Right Place". After listening to it, I think it might be the same exact version as appeared on their live album, I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings (2001).
Anyway, check out some more interesting articles appearing recently in newspaper about rebuilding New Orleans. The most detailed coverage is at NPR.
August 29, 2007 7:37 PM
vu
my♥posts
vu@weheartmusic.com
k-otix.com
Cari Palazollo is from Austin, TX and part of Belaire along with her twin sister Christa and Voxtrot's Matt Simon and Jason Chronis. She has a solo project called Fancy Feast, yup, just like the cat food. Go ahead and google "Fancy Feast" and you'll see many results for the food instead of her. She's also been part of other bands such as Fozlur, Arkay, and Flashlight Fiction.
Fancy Feast has released one EP titled Nagasaki Hiroshima Raver Ghost Dance Remixxxx, which features the track below, "Whatcha Need Girl", and is worth picking up since it packs so much awesome into six songs. There are also two tracks available for your listening pleasure over at Judah Records' audio page that were taken from this EP. She also has a self-released album of 20 tracks, which includes the songs from the EP. As of right now, the only way to purchase the cd is by sending her a message through Belaire's MySpace page or emailing her (belairemusic [at] gmail.com).
Belaire will be releasing their debut LP, Exploding / Impacting, sometime in July. But if that seems too far away to satisfy your ears, they have a self-titled EP available that comes with hand-crafted cd cover art and a 7" vinyl, Haunted Castle, featuring 4 tracks with a ghouly, spooky, Halloween theme.
In addition to the EPs, Belaire and Fancy Feast were part of the Kanye West tribute album, Indie Translations of The College Dropout. Belaire covered "Through the Wire"; the song that launched Kanye's rapping career and featured samples from Aretha Franklin's "Through the Fire", but this version is far from that. It's free of samples and full of synths and keyboard action. Fancy Feast covered the final track, appropriately titled "Last Call". It's a synth-filled, female-vocaled version sans the Jay-Z intro and Kanye's lengthy story.
And Cari was also in a band called Fozlur which consisted of 5 members. I couldn't find much information about the band since their bio consists of an odd story about the Fozlur Institute and not them in general, but they do have a website and their releases are freely available for downloading.
As for the other members of Belaire...
Christa Palazzolo is also a painter from Queens, NY and has had exhibitions at galleries in Texas as well as New York. Her and Cari were part of the band Arkay along with Richard Kentopp. He's in a "band" called Books Died On and the EPs Summer and Fall and Love Me, Hate Me feature vocals by Christa, which can be streamed on Last.fm. I put "band" in quotation marks because Books Died On isn't exactly a band; it's basically him and other members who he feels like playing with, which includes Cari and Christa. Cari and Richard were part of an instrumental band called Flashlight Fiction with their friend Reed Chapman. They created two albums/EPs; the first was self-titled and the second was called The Production Cycle and both releases contained seven tracks and are available from Judah Records.
And the guys from Voxtrot are set to release their self-titled debut album on May 22 featuring all new songs. So if you have their other releases, you'll be happy to hear that there won't be any re-recorded versions of those songs.
Since I compacted so much info up there, here's a list of Belaire's projects/bands:
Cari Palazzolo - Fancy Feast, Belaire, Flashlight Fiction, Arkay, Fozlur
Christa Palazzolo - Belaire, Books Died On
Matt Simon - Belaire, Voxtrot
Jason Chronis - Belaire, Voxtrot
| Fancy Feast & Belaire: | |||||
 | Fancy Feast Nagasaki Hiroshima Raver Ghost Dance Remixxx 2005 |  | Fancy Feast Fancy Feast 2006 |  | Various Artists Indie Translations of The College Dropout 2005 |
 | Belaire Belaire EP 2005 |  | Belaire Haunted Castle 7" 2006 |  | Belaire Exploding / Impacting due July 2007 |
| Voxtrot: | |||||
 | Voxtrot The Start of Something 7" 2004 |  | Voxtrot Raised By Wolves 7" 2005 |  | Voxtrot Raised By Wolves EP 2005 |
 | Various Artists Bang Crash Boom!!! 2006 |  | Voxtrot Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives EP 2006 |  | Various Artists Little Darla Has a Treat For You, Volume 24 2006 |
 | Voxtrot Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives 7" 2006 |  | Various Artists The Kids at the Club 2006 |  | Voxtrot Your Biggest Fan EP 2006 |
 | Voxtrot Trouble 7" 2007 |  | Voxtrot Blood Red Blood 7" 2007 |  | Voxtrot Voxtrot due 22 May 2007 |
| Arkay, Flashlight Fiction, Fozlur: | |||||
| Arkay The Arkay Demos 2002 |  | Flashlight Fiction Flashlight Fiction 2002 |  | Flashlight Fiction The Production Cycle 2003 |
| Fozlur Kill the Wall Street Abrahams | | Fozlur Magnetoscope | | Fozlur Tea Time with Fozlur |
| Books Died On: | |||||
 | Books Died On Summer and Fall EP 2004 |  | Books Died On Love Me Hate Me EP 2005 | ||
(I didn't include the other 2 releases by Books Died On because Christa doesn't appear on them)
Jason :: Fancy Feast | Belaire | Voxtrot | Arkay | Flashlight Fiction | Fozlur | Books Died On | KVRX | Christa Palazzolo
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