ChinaShop

If you haven’t heard of Katie Melua, you better hide that little fun fact from your British friends, as she is more than a legend in the UK.  This spunky singer-songwriter got her start when she attended the Brit School for Performing Arts where she caught the eye of the prestigious Mike Batt, composer for everyone from Art Garfunkle to Vanessa Mae.  Spellbound by her mesmerizing voice, Mike signed Katie to his label, Dramatico.  By the age of 19, Katie’s debut, Call Off The Search, sold 1.8 million copies in just 5 months.  Her follow-up, Nine Million Bicycles, went four times platinum and she instantly sprung to the status of England’s best selling female artist and Europe’s highest selling female artist.

China Shop picked the brain of this powerhouse of songwriting to see what she’s all about offstage:

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5.00 (1 votes)

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Eminem just released his new album, Recovery, last week to absolute rave reviews. Personally I can’t stop listening to “Not Afraid” as well as “Love the Way You Lie” feat. Rihanna. Both have insanely infectious grooves and strong messages, no surprises there.  After years of silence, threats of retirement, substance abuse, divorce, re-marriage, and god only knows what else, he’s finally stepped back in the spot light and we’re happy to see him shine.

On June 22nd, Eminem also took the stage to not only show the world he’s still relevant, but to pay homage to his roots, the MC battle. Red Bull EmSee is a new competition focused on the truest form of rap competition while highlighting the modern freestyle spirit. The event was hosted by Angie Yee. Judges Alchemist, Just Blaze and Craig G will gave their thumbs up or down to a stellar line-up of the freshest MC talent.

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4.67 (3 votes)

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Mike Posner is one cool dude. He’s young, he’s talented, and he’s touring around the country playing clubs and festivals. Cooler Than Me should definitely be on your summer play list. Although he’s been lucky catching the right ears at the best possible time of his career, he remains humble and dedicated. I like that in a prodigy. Keep making straight hits young man…carry on!

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5.00 (1 votes)

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“There’s not a lot of dudes making me rewind these days. Everything now is fast forward, next song. Everybody wants to go in the studio and not write their rhymes. What good is not writing your rhymes? It shows!” Blaq Poet’s words drip with venom, his face contorted like some mask in a Greek tragedy when discussing the current state of rap music. This is hardly a new diatribe. But the verbal slings take on renewed vitality when voiced by an artist who has participated in one of rap’s greatest feuds —the Bronx vs. Queens— as spearheaded by KRS-One and MC Shan, respectively. In this derivative era of MCs with their noses open, their eyes closed, and their imaginations overactive, Blaq Poet’s unapologetic streetwise bluster is refreshing and welcome. And the irony of getting back to rap’s essence —“bangin’ boom-bap, crazy lyrical content”—as something novel isn’t lost on the grizzled Queensbridge native.

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There’s a reason that Speech Debelle’s debut album is called “Speech Therapy” and that’s because she speaks straight from the heart, with complete intimacy, as if only addressing one person. As if she expects the record never to be heard.

Perhaps in some way, that’s not an unreasonable assumption. The 25 year old South Londoner has been through the mill both before and since she started working on this set of recordings. The oldest song on here is called “Finish This Album”. It was the tune she first played when she visited Big Dada almost five years ago. Its theme is that she has to hold it together, look after herself and try to get the record done, as if the act of finishing will somehow liberate her from the problems in her life. It’s both intimate and epic, moving back and forth between the personal and political, the mundane and the spiritual. It’s a journey acoss London and a journey across her life thus far. Speech is both young and old beyond her years. At the age of twenty five her fragile voice can make her sound like a teenager, but she’s packed in enough experience to last most people forever.

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5.00 (1 votes)

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With their latest opus, The Lovemakers have engineered a carefully orchestrated blend of early-eighties electronica with Marshall-stacked, go-to-11, wall-of-sound thunder that would make both Siouxsie Sioux and Phil Spector (creepily) proud. This September sees the release of Let’s Be Friends, the Oakland quartet’s fourth album, and already a potential candidate for best electropop album of the year.

The Lovemakers  – See What I Wanna See

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4.33 (6 votes)

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Anyone who went to college parties in the 90’s will recall that when the US3 hit song, Cantaloop (Flip Fantasia) came on, all those hot, scantily-clad sorority chicks would go absolutely bananas – and if they were drunk enough, they might even flash you some totally gratuitous boob.  So while you might have moved on to some boring desk job after graduation, the US3 clique, led by funky London producer/instrumentalist Geoff Wilkinson is seven albums deep into their jazz/hip-hop journey and still going strong.  Their newest opus is the newly released, harder-edged, stripped-down LP titled stop, think, run.

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