New Year. New Music. New Favorites. ChinaShop handpicks the Women to Watch in 2011. Don’t sleep…
Featured Music Girls in a ChinaShop: Anna Calvi
5.00 (2 votes)
Monthly Archives: January 2011
5.00 (2 votes)
Music Don Blackman : The Real Hook-Up Artist
If you’re one of those people who consider yourself worth your weight in jazz/funk history, or consider yourself an aficionado of the genre in the least, you may have heard of Don Blackman — one of the hardest-working men in soul music history, alongside giants like James Brown and George Clinton. He grew up next to legendary jazz saxophonist Charles McPherson in Queens, who in turn introduced an impressionable young Blackman to Charles Mingus — and the rest was pretty much history, with the lad becoming so well-renowned for his songwriting and pianist skills he eventually hooked up with other revered artists like Earth, Wind, and Fire and Roy Ayers. Oh, and getting back to Clinton and P-Funk: yep, he was jamming with them when he was only in his early 20s. All this hard work and lifelong toiling eventually led to some steady work as a session musician for the likes of Sting (Brand New Day), Janet Jackson (“That’s the Way Love Goes”), and Jay-Z (for his work on Mister Bleek’s album). And speaking of the Hook-Up, Don Blackman eventually connected with Master P for his album of the same name. You can hear him reminisce now on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.
5.00 (1 votes)
Art/Design Featured Low Riding with Lalo Cota
Lalo Cota is known by his trademark colorful skull-infused art that represents his Mexican heritage and pays homage to his love of Dia de los Muertos. Unlike many of today’s top artists, Lalo never attended art school. He believes that, “Art schools teach you to be like everyone else and that defeats the purpose of being an artist.” Lalo took advantage of classes throughout his public school days and focused his advanced education on developing his business practices. His work can be seen in the form of murals, billboards, stickers, paintings, and his own t-shirt line that will be soon launching on his website. He’s also done his share of painting on human canvases and has even designed actual bust casts from real models in the name of Breast Cancer awareness.
Lalo set down his paintbrushes to share his artistic thoughts with ChinaShop:
4.87 (23 votes)
Music Girls in a ChinaShop: Emika
New Year. New Music. New Favorites. ChinaShop handpicks the Women to Watch in 2011. Don’t sleep…
5.00 (4 votes)
Music Having Fun with Hip Hop: Redman
Redman has jumped off of stages and into crowds – and off of airplanes into clouds. It’s that kind of recklessness and willingness to take extreme risks that has enabled the New Jersey rhymer to sustain a wild rap career that has lasted nearly 20 years.
“It’s like my personality in the music,” says Redman during an interview from Def Jam Records’ New York office. Redman’s seventh album, Redman Presents…Reggie, was released on Tuesday. “It allows me to branch off into any area that I want because I’m open,” he continues. “I could be your hardest asshole and I can be the easiest guy to get along with. That’s what my music is. I have people music. I don’t just have, ‘OK, I’m a thug. I can’t smile.’ Or, ‘Fuck that. I don’t do that X Games bullshit.’ I don’t have that kind of look. I have the kind of look like, ‘Hey. I like that guy. He smokes. He pays his bills. He steps in his pants one leg at a time just like we do,’ and that’s the feel and the vibe that I give off to people, so when I do things like the X Games or a Gillette commercial people see me and be like, ‘Wow. Look at this dude,’ not, ‘What the fuck is he in there for?’ It was like, ‘Yeah, well, why not?’ It’s just his personality.”
5.00 (3 votes)
Film Film Fridays Film Fridays: Graphic Scenes, Overpaid Stars, and Crackheads
BEST FILM
The Fighter: Christian Bale gives the performance of a lifetime as a crackhead who keeps jumping out the back window of his drug den into a garbage bin to avoid his mother when she shows up on his porch. The guy has transmogrified himself both physically and mentally to tackle every one of his roles, from The Machinist to Batman and now this — he’s one of several actors who carry this movie to greatness. Pretty much everyone else in that film deserves an award for best portrayal of white trash-Aqua Net-addled ho.
4.33 (6 votes)
A Few of My Favorite Things Are We Friends Yet?
5.00 (2 votes)
Music Mandy’s Music Mail 1/7/11
I’m a week into my three-week holiday in lovely London Town, and though I didn’t think it possible, I’ve fallen even more in love with this city (which is quite something considering it was rather stressful to begin with: first and second flights canceled due to the epic blizzard in New York; third flight massively delayed; didn’t get my luggage until this past Monday; phone completely broke – yay for my friend having a spare Blackberry). However, overall it’s been wonderful and me and London seem to get on pretty damn well. But more on my adventures later, let’s get to this week’s music news, shall we?
5.00 (1 votes)
Music Girls in a ChinaShop: Jenny O
New Year. New Music. New Favorites. ChinaShop handpicks the Women to Watch in 2011. Don’t sleep…
5.00 (2 votes)
Music Spank Rock! Need I Say More?
Hmmm. Here’ a particular group with songs called “Pu$$y”, “bitch,” and “BOOTAY.” And albums called YoYoYoYoYo!, and Bangers and Cash, as well as the pictures of some fairly big-bootied girls on the album covers. The question is: Has 2 Live Crew reunited yet again, or could there be a more devious, tongue-in-cheek rapper/DJ behind this nasty piece of work?
The answer, perhaps thankfully, is that the guys who wrote a song called “Get the Fuck Out of My House” — and meant it seriously — have been successfully parodied (perhaps unintentionally) by a more talented and spinner(s) named Spank Rock. Yes, no one’s still quite sure how many are in the group altogether. But when Xfm London breakfast DJ Lauren Laverne gives you her prestigious “Album of the Year” Award, and you’re being played on a Wish-Bone salad dressing commercial, people tend to sit up and pay notice.
His — or their – hip hop songs run the gammut, from the hard-hitting and bass-heavy rap of the early 90s, and combining it with that electro sound that’s dominating the charts today — all for a sound that sounds eerily like the aforementioned Crew, actually — and they’ve even composed an ode to producing God Rick Rubin. You can get a piece of the action right now on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.
5.00 (2 votes)