Black. Summers’. Night
GENERAL By Contra™ on July 24, 2008 at 12:24 pmThe once bountiful land of apt vocalists has become creatively arid, destitute of talent and pathetically monotonous. It’s terribly easy to forget that there are artists out there with voices that do not require autotune or overpowering/generic beats in order to create a palpable melody.
I, for one, had definitely almost fallen into such a lull a few months back, having tired out the collection of the few decent R&B and Neo-Soul albums from this past year or two. I was about to pull a Nasir Jones and declare the cultures dead.
But the fat lady was yet to sing.
Pic Property of BET
Maxwell, although neither fat, nor a lady, hadn’t sung quite yet either. When he eventually did, he put the genres back onto my regular rotation. Initially, it came to me in one of those Archimedean “Eureka” moments while I was looking for a song to cap off a slow jam playlist I was working on. One of my co-workers noticed me jolt, to life and began peeking over my shoulder. She then proceeded to proclaim her adoration for the once afro-puffed crooner, and requested his discography.
So it was that Urban Hang Suite began playing, whilst I began checking up on what the man in question was up to.
Thus was uncovered this man’s ploy to release 3 albums in 3 years. Black, that supposedly drops sometime this year, Summers’ that presumably drops next summer, and Night which will be with us in 2010. Rumor of this had begun a few months prior and I completely disregarded it as something too ambitious for a man who spends so much time marinating his music to ensure their flavor is potent.
But who can complain? Upon hearing a snippet of his new single, any doubt one may have had quickly dissolves in the melodic ebb and flow pouring out of the speakers. Couple this with his stellar performance for the Al Green tribute on BET a few moons ago and it’s clear the man is still in substantially rare form; surely enough to pull this off and jumpstart the currently dormant genres.
Maxwell - Pretty Wings (Snippet)
Maxwell Performs “Simply Beautiful” - Al Green Tribute
Posted in GENERAL, MUSIC, VIDEO — Tags: BET, Black, Live Performance, Maxwell, Night, Summer's, VIDEO
Tweet This
Digg This
Save to delicious
Stumble it
RSS Feed
20 Comments
Max w/o the ‘fro?
…and with front pockets in “other than” snakeskin pants???
This could take some getting used to. lol
Lemme stop clownin’ the man… Sh*t sounds GOOD, and not many cats can saing some Al….
good.vibes.
maxwell “?uestolve aka afro-hairs” iz dead. lol
Maxwell is the man yo. Will hit you with that pretty wings snippet in a second.
maxwell fell off the radar but it’s good to hear he’s got some new shit in the works…it’s too true that there’s a serious lack of quality adult, non-overproduced R&B in the game right now…i prefer the brother when he was rockin the ‘fro (no homo) but whatever, as long as it ain’t like samson with his sangin abilities or some ish
Mad Mad Max. Where you been? I done heard more rumors about dude. Glad to see he’s upright and singing again.
NeoSoul got blaxploitated and Maxwell was Sweetback’s badass Song: First one, outta necessity before all the BS and cloning started.
I remember he came to Chi a couple months before Urban Hang dropped.
$10 at The Park West–one of the best joints to see a live show anywhere. The cat was an hour late–for a 10pm show. He came out and proceeded to rip the joint in half.
He just owned it. People forgot dude was late. Didn’t care he was so good. Just him and a band… I think 6 women had orgasms. Another 5 got pregnant and about 15 more brothas got so in touch with their feminine side they walked out saying, “do i look fat in this?”
I cop every one of dude’s releases whenever he drops.
I thought he’d be the new Marv–he just has this crazy distinct voice, man. He used to write his but off, but he never had/showed the political or social side that Marv did; but for straight shy-guy-in-love-with-love type music, dude owns that hands down.
Ad him to Rahsaan, Donnie and for the hat trick of soul brothas that will never get their full due thanks to their um… well. I ain’t sayin’ i’m just sayin.
Good article. Maxwell is that dude. I been down on R&B for a long time now. Everybody wants to be so trendy, whether it be the 1,001 autotune lames, the Chris Brown/Rihanna type pop kids, The Dream’s stupid ass You Tube name dropping, N-Word, MF-Word on an R&B song having overrated ass…There’s no more rhythm or blues in R&B. Worse than Hip-Hop, R&B lost is Soul a loooooong time ago.
http://lupefiasco-lupend.blogspot.com/2008/07/lupe-fiasco-talks-about-nas-on.html …
“Why Nas Is My Favorite Rapper…(If You Even Care)”
While in the midst of listening to “It Was Written” as a teen I was completely unaware of the existence of “Illmatic”…I remember some dudes beating a song in a car that sounded like a Nas song and I asked my homey what was that and he was like “Its from Nas 1st album”…then on a trip to my sisters college I was in her boyfriends dorm room and he had a poster of the “Illmatic” cover and I was like what is that and he was like “that’s Nas 1st album” and just so happened he had a copy (he also had a copy of “The Infamous” which is another story altogether…Yeah Prodigy…Mobb Deep played a big part in the evolution of Lupe)…So I puts “Illmatic” inside the CD Walkman, strap on the headphones and proceeded to have my life changed forever…It became my soundtrack for a time…all day everyday, everywhere…along with “IWW”…time passes…”The Firm” drops, memorized the damn thing and then named myself from it…time passes…one faithful day I was at my sisters house and was watching BET don’t remember the exact show but probably Rap City…and who do I see sitting on the project steps in the pea-soup green flight suit (I HAD THE JACKET!!!) with the big ass QB chain then cuts to the bathroom with him rapping to himself in the mirror with Premo in the living room on the wheels of steel???…NEW NAS???…WTF???…yup “Nas Is Like”…consider that memorized, consider that instrumental copped and rocked to at the High School Talent Show…”I Am” drops…heard “Hate Me Now” on WGCI that same night asked Pops (R.I.P.) to take me to Circuit City where I copped the King Tut covered imperfect masterpiece and first heard the odd line that still sticks with me to this day… “Heard Her Body Guard Took Snook To God” - “Small World”…go figure…I love that line…live with it….memorize it…life soundtrack status…but there were songs that just seemed like filler…hmmm…in the booklet there is a picture of the next album…”Nastradamus”…and I patiently begin to wait…time passes…some how, some way a copy of the bootleg of “Nastradamus” gets into my possession and it is a classic…”Belly Button Window” “Poppa Was A Playa” the original “Project Windows” yup…yet another life soundtrack…(I kept it for a long time and eventually gave it to Stacks Bundles (R.I.P.) and he took it back to NY with him and I never saw it again…I was heartbroken)…when the official version of “Nastradamus” dropped I was super excited when the lead off joint “Life We Chose” blazed though the speakers of my little stereo…”Come Get Me” was ridiculous and a few others but it wasn’t sticking like the other albums and some of the heatrocks that were on the bootleg weren’t on the official version…it didn’t have the life soundtrack effect like the other albums…its wasn’t great…I didn’t feel it as much..Damn!!! OH NO!!! Was Nas Falling Off?!???!!!???…Damn….I started to question…then something magical happened…The Beef With The BIg Homey!!!!…OHHHH SHHHIIIITTT…I was front row…Jay had just finished “Takeover” and we were some of the first to hear it at Bassline and it was murderous…I was like its over…Nas is finished…Yeah I counted him out…I was like he cant come back from that…I remember the only person in my circle that had faith in Nas was Stacks’ Uncle…and he was like watch…just watch…and sho nuff…a little while later back in Chicago…one night our cell phones exploded with 212, 718, 347 & 646 area codes…New York was on fire!!!…The “Ether” dropped…and Jesus was it a comeback!!!…then one word reigned supreme “STILLMATIC”…with the strings crying and the words “Blood Of A Slave, Heart Of A King” resonating in the X5…YUP!!!…Nas was back!!!…I swayed from the flock but now I was back with a vengeance…”Rewind” “2nd Childhood” “Rule” and the crown jewel “What Goes Around”…soundtrack to my life stuff…then another chink in the armor…”God’s Son”…I honestly didn’t like it…coming after “Stillmatic” I was like damn…what happened?…(R.I.P. Mrs. Jones…thanx for giving us a light in the darkness via your son)…I take it on the chin with the knowledge now to never count out Mr. Jones…and he does not let down…he roars back with the double whammy “Street’s Disciple”…”U.B.R. The Unauthorized Biography Of Rakim” is all that I needed to be more than impressed…FUCK!!!…excuse my french…then comes the statement that pissed off hip-hop and sent niggaz back to the stu to prove him wrong “Hip-Hop Is Dead”…it had a few…wasn’t glorious…wasn’t really moving…but good…damn Nas…I started to question again…I started to doubt…”NIGGER” (yeah I still call it Nigger…Fuck the press!!!)…really???…this nigga is naming his new shit “Nigger”???…hmmm…interesting…publicity stunt?…of course it is…did it work?…hell yeah!…people were pissed…it was great publicity wise…but the music, the message…would it be that “soundtrack to life”, thought provoking, undeniably revolutionary, conceptually impeccable, stunning, invigorating, inspiring, down right send-you-back-to-the-drawing-board quality PIFF!!! that N-A-S is capable of ????????????………………I avoided buying it…I avoided watching the videos online….I avoided downloading any of the leaked music…I was scared…I put it out of my mind…I refused to participate…….I was afraid it wouldn’t be…………until today……………and the answer to the longwinded question is……
Yeah Nigguh!!!!
DAMMMMMMMMNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!
“NIGGER” (Yeah I’m Still Calling It NIGGER) is a masterpiece!!!!….
NAS is spitting like a demon….first time I experienced multiple “wheel-it-backs” a mere 20 seconds into a song in a longtime….
through the up’s and the down’s N-A-S still holds the crown…well to me anyway…
ps: i have already that this album will be a masterpiece !
masterpeace, peace yall. Hiphop lives.. one love !
When dude came on stage at the BET Awards, I was like… “Who the fuck is this dude?… Oh shit! Maxwell?!!!!” lol
I said Eureka. Pythagoras be biting.
lol greums wanna say the same thing…
but too much greums don’t kill the greums
hahahahahahaha
^Me Too LOL
^- Geometrists in the house. Change made.
@ canseco…donnie is that dude as is rashaan. sounds like you’ve been up to funky buddha to catch a few of rashaan’s shows from time to time huh?
@ contra…i didn’t realize max was coming with new material this year or next. shit, that sounds like a reason for a maxwell loosie moment if tss hasn’t had one already. let me get to searching…
where can i find this snippet…i prolly heard it and forgot about it, but i doubt that…again i ask, where is this snippet?
Ghostdini,
yup! you know it. Seen Rahsaan a couple times @ Navy Pier… Never seen Donnie live tho. But now that i’m in SoCal i might hive to drive up to the Bay for one of his shows this year.
i need to upload some Rahsaan for yall. Donnie’s Daily News got slep on hard.
NO ONE ELSE IN THE GREUMS BUT GREUMSY Says:
good.vibes.
maxwell “?uestolve aka afro-hairs” iz dead. lol
______________________________________
Easy there Greums.
I been rocking my current fro since Late ‘05 and before that I was rocking one from right before Cube had his on the cover of The Source (damn that’s been a minute) up till like early 03
Afro’s don’t die.
AfrooooooS
Fantastic article. His talent is what I’ve been yearning for a long time now. I know he will not disappoint. I can’t wait for the album.