Syreeta

Syreeta – I Love Every Little Thing About You

Syreeta – To Know You Is To Love You

First of, thanks to Soul Sides for putting me up on a link, you can find them on my sidebar though I expect you already know them pretty well.

Aa change of pace for this last post before we enter 2005. Without wanting to step on any other blogger’s toes I thought it only right to slow things down for the end of the year.
Soul music lost a truly great singer this year when Syreeta Wright passed away. A long term collaborator with Stevie Wonder, her combination of warm, honey, vocals and meaningful lyrics combined to create some classic music. You can read about her life history here. She also sang backing tracks for Stevie with Minnie Riperton who I will no doubt cover in a future post.

I’ve put up two songs from Syreeta’s first album, aptly titled Syreeta . The album was produced by Stevie Wonder and his influence is pretty obvious all the way through it.

The first track, I Love Every Little Thing About You, is a funky cover of a Stevie song and the bopping bass is perfect for getting ready to go out on New Year’s Eve. The second track, To Know You Is To Love You, is a duet between Stevie and Syreeta and is just the kind of laid back soulful bliss you’ll need tomorrow morning if you’re out partying tonight.

Anyway, I’ll be away till mid next week partying (sitting at home nursing a hangover) so have a good new year and don’t forget to comment if you have any requests or want more information.

MF Doom - KMD

KMD - 808 Man

KMD - Peachfuzz

So everyone knows about MF Doom these days with his incredibly prolific output of the moment making up for the lost years of the mid nineties when he vanished from the public eye.

He's kept a pretty high standard with most of his recent output, Madvillainy being my own personal highlight, but I thought I'd concentrate on his early years. Back before he smoked so much weed his voice turned gravelly he was in the group KMD with his brother DJ Subroc. Back then Doom was known as Zev luv x and his style, while higher pitched, is easily recognizable.

You can read a brief history of the group here, their group disbanding after the untimely death of subroc.

Thought I'd put up two tracks that both feature on their greatest hits compilation. The first track is a bouncing upbeat number with the standard cut up style of the early nineties.

The second track is a personal favorite of mine even though it's a pretty lightweight number, reminds me of the breezy flow of Bizarre Journey II The Pharcyde.

Sha-Key and Priest

Sha-key feat Priest - Ducking Lessons

This track has been a favorite of mine since I heard it on the compilation album Connected 321 back in 1998. Not sure how easy it is to get this album now but there's details of it here

It's a decent album and includes the original version of The Wreckoning by Lateef which is enough reason by itself to pick it up.

I know very little about the artist Sha-Key except that she now operates under the title Hanifah Walidah. However this song works perfectly with her rapping playing off the more abstract style of Priest from the Anti-Pop Consortium.

Try it, I don't think you'll be disappointed.....

Freestyle Fellowship

First post in the blog and i thought i'd start with some undisputed legends of hip hop.

I can't believe that in all the years of listening to hip hop I only discovered Freestyle Fellowship relatively recently.

Their first two albums are often credited as classics and rightly so with interesting mcing (including the legendary Aceyalone) and a mixture of samples and live instruments.

Here's a couple of tasters from their second album Innercity Griots, thought i'd put up one of the downtempo tracks to give you an idea of their range.........

Freestyle Fellowship - Park Bench People

And a good old funky song about the booty, slightly reminiscent of De La Soul's Buddy.....

Freestyle Fellowship - Shammy's


You can pick up the album here and I can honestly say you won't regret it. A hip hop album with almost no fillers is a rare thing indeed.

Because i don't want to rip off these talented artists, all mp3s will be available for about a week.

Posting will be a bit slow over xmas but after that i'll try to update this site every couple of days.