PLAYLIST OF THE DAY: PRINCE TRIBUTE

With the disappointment of the Prince tribute at the BET awards, I decided to dedicate my radio show playlist to the music of the artist Prince this week on WPTS FM in Pittsburgh. All of the songs were either Prince originals or remakes, or songs inspired or sampled by the musical genius. Here is a finalized playlist of the Prince tribute:

1. Kiss - Prince

2. Fast Car - The Dream

3. If I Was Your Girlfriend - TLC

4. International Playboi - Teedra Moses

5. I Wanna Be Your Lover - Prince

6. Nasty Girl - Vanity 6

7. Erotic City - Prince

8. Last Night - Diddy featuring Keyshia Cole

9. Make Love - Keri Hilson

10. Do Me Baby - Mel'issa Morgan

11. Promise - Ciara

12. Do It To Me - Usher

13. 9 to 5 - Electrik Red

14. Holla If You Need Me - Trey Songz

15. Girl Tonite - Twista featuring Trey Songz

16. Like You'll Never See Me Again - Alicia Keys

17. Adore - Prince

18. Mariah Carey featuring Dru Hill - The Beautiful Ones

19. Sex Therapy - Robin Thicke

20. Until the End of Time - Justin Timberlake

21. Purple Rain - Prince

INDUSTRY NEWS: BET MJ TRIBUTE 2.0

I had plans of writing this posts sooner, but I figured I would get a fresh perspective on the tribute after discussing it on my radio show 'Love On Your Radio' on WPTS FM in Pittsburgh (stream live Tuesdays starting at 8 pm from ). Anyway, after varying points of views, I came to a conclusion about Chris Brown's tribute to the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.

All in all, I feel as though the tribute was done in bad taste on both BET and Chris Brown's part.

I feel as though Chris Brown's display of emotion at the awards was a publicity stunt. It was staged all too well with him crying during "Man in the Mirror" when he finally had to sing LIVE! (which is something he never does). His performances are like dance recitals more so than actually musical concerts if you ask me. Also, he decides cry during a song that has lyrical content related to the Rihanna situation? just too sketchy...

Don't get me wrong, the tribute visually was amazing... BET's creative department finally got something correct in terms of the visual. However, BET was wrong for trying to do a second tribute. In all honesty, the first tribute was not terrible in terms of the time BET had to prepare it. Nonetheless, I don't think it was appropriate to have a tribute with just one performer, just because that performer could not be apart of tributes last year.

Lastly, Janet should have been the last person to formally tribute her brother, and the entertainment community should have left it at that. Not only, the MJ tribute this year definitely affected the attention BET gave to Prince as the lifetime achievement winner. Therefore, If I were Stephen Hill I would have declined on a full blow MJ tribute.

I'm sure some will disagree, but that is just my take!

INDUSTRY NEWS: BET AWARDS 2010

So twitter was off the chain last night. I even got put in twitter jail from too much tweeting, and it was all because of the 2010 BET Awards. This was the tenth anniversary of the Black Award show, and it was decent. Admist the Pre-Show, all I heard was talks of "this years coonery," but I must say the show was entertaining and better than the Grammys. There were performances from Kanye West, Drake, El DeBarge, Alicia Keys, Monica, Diddy-Dirty Money, Ludacris, Nicki Minaj, and tributes to Teddy Pendergrass, Michael Jackson, and Prince.

Queen Latifah served as the host of the show, and had several costume changes as she reprised some of her most famous roles like "Cleo" from "Set It Off." She did a decent job.

Kanye West opened the show, performing his new song "Power." The tapping of the performance was cool, but the song is just okay to me. At this point, West seems washed up to me.

T.I. also gave a lacluster performance, but his music has always been hit or miss to me.

Alicia Keys performed a medley of her hits as BET made a special recognition that she was crowned Billboards top R&B and Hip-Hop artist of the millennium thus far. However, I feel like Usher would have recieved that nod. He has sold more albums and has had just as many number one hits, if not more. Nonetheless, her performance was solid, and her new single "Unthinkable (I'm Ready)" was performed in full.

B.o.B, Keyshia Cole, and Eminem performed together. At that point, I wanted to change the channel.

Diddy-Dirty Money gave an amazing performance of "Hello Good Morning." They included a never before seen strobe light effect on television which was top notch. To me, that was the most interesting and artistic performance of the night in terms of special effects.

Monica performed her hit song "Everything to Me," and brought out Deniece Williams and she flipped the song into "Silly." It was brilliant.

Usher gave a legit performance of "There Goes My Baby."

Trey Songz performed "Yo Side of the Bed," and flipped it into "Purple Rain," during the segment preceding the Prince tribute. Prince did not seemed pleased.

Following, El DeBarge performed his forth song of the night. Then, the Prince tribute began with a foreward from Stevie Wonder. Janelle Monae gave the first performance followed by another up and coming singer. Then Alicia Keys took to the stage and wowed the audience and even Prince himself. Then Patti Labelle took to the stage to perform "Purple Rain," which had already been done by Trey Songz in his performance. It's stange that Stephen Hill would have a repeat occur, considering the Prince tribute was relatively short. Production wise, most contemporary artists have a Prince-esque song so there should have been more performances. I plan on discussing the Michael Jackson tribute 2.0 at the Award show in another post but i just feel like the night was not about Prince and BET should be ashamed. Lastly, Chaka Khan presented Prince with his Lifetime Achievement Award to Prince, and he gave a heart felt speech.

Here is the winners list from last night's award show:

Centric Award: Monica

Best Female R&B Artist: Alicia Keys

Best Female Hip-Hop Artist: Nicki Minaj

Best Hip-Hop Male: Drake

Best Collaboration: Jay-Z & Alicia Keys – ‘Empire State Of Mind’

Best Male R&B Artist: Trey Songz

Humanitarian Award: John Legend

Best Video: Beyonce & Lady Gaga – ‘Video Phone’

Lifetime Achievement Award: Prince

Viewers Choice Awards / Best Song: Rihanna – ‘Hard’

ALBUM REVIEW: DRAKE

In the words of Rihanna "the wait is over." Arguably, the most celebrated rapper of 2009 finally dropped his debut studio album "Thank Me Later." A year ago, Drake's breakthrough single "Best I Ever Had" emerged onto radio and became a summer anthem, and by the Fall of 2009 he was featured on tracks from a majority of rap and R&B heavy-hitters.

Fast forward to June 2010, Drake's debut album does not fail to impress listeners. He manages to sell 447,000 copies of his album in the first week. Upon first listen, I was enamored with the project. Immediately I thought this was the album Kanye West should have made instead of "808 and Heartbreak." The album has a sound that is progressive but not too aggressive, and Drake does a great job of equally spitting rhymes and singing. The production style of this album has Jeff Bhasker written all over it, as some of the tracks would mesh perfectly with Alicia Key's "The Element of Freedom" album. Perhaps, the album's best gem is its opener "Fireworks," which features Ms. Keys on the hook. And the album's second single "Find Your Love" is a gem as well.

All in all, "Thank Me Later," is a solid, superb effort. It is contemporary and really shows Drake as a visionary. He waited patiently to release an album that was purely his sound and no one else. More than likely, Drake will win a Grammy for this release.

INDUSTRY NEWS: MARVIN ISLEY DIES

Marvin Isley of the Isley Brothers has died at the age of 56 in Chicago. He was not apart of the original Isley Brothers line-up who recorded back in the 1950's with hits like "Shout" or during the groups tenure at Motown records. He joined the group in 1973 with cousin Chris Jasper and brother Ernie during the Isley Brother's classic '3+3' era, where the group's first six member album was entitled "3+3."

There has been no word of a funeral date yet. Hopefully, Ron Isley, who is currently incarcerated because of tax issues, can attend the funeral.

NEW VIDEO: KELIS

Above is the video for Kelis' new single, "Acapella," produced by French DJ, David Guetta, who has worked extensively with Kelly Rowland on her new project. When it comes to interpreting "Acapella," I'm not gonna lie, the beat is kinda alright for a euro-pop song and the lyrics are sort of profound. However, most would probably say she's gone off the deep end with this offering. Although, Kelis' biggest songs have always been super left field, this record is not going to appear too original with GaGa mania going on.

NEW MUSIC: CIARA

With the release of the lead single and video "Ride," and the promo video "Basic Instinct (U Got Me)," Ciara is desperately trying to recapture her glory days, and make up for last year's flop album, "Fantasy Ride." Her newest track "Get It Girl," improves on its predecessor, with a sound very reminiscent of "Goodies," Ciara's 2004 chart-topping, debut single. The song goes hard, with a bombastic beat and strong vocals. Although the song does not convey much of a message, lyrically, it is evident that Ciara just wants her fans to dance. As of late, the urban market has been forced to put up with artists like Lady GaGa for their dance music fixes. The First Lady of Crunk and B is back, and ready to give the urban market a familiar style of dance music.




Here is a clip of "Basic Instict (U Got Me):

CLASSIC ALBUM: HERE WHERE THERE IS LOVE

In theory, Dionne Warwick may be the 60's most influential female vocalist. Although, most people cite Diana Ross and Aretha Franklin for their approach to popular music, more fail to realize the significance of Dionne as a musical force. She never had the press office of Motown Records to boost her image or desire to become someone she was not, or portrayed a "pro-black" image in her music (i.e. Aretha Franklin) either. Of course Dionne was a house hold name, and she had many firsts, but it seems Diana and Aretha managed to take some of her thunder in terms of mass appeal, although Dionne served as a blueprint for them, by musical style and song selection. In other words, she possessed qualities they both lacked, which mattered most. Diana would try to emulate Dionne's cool, MOR facade, and Aretha would look to Dionne's songbook for several Bacharach/David records.

Dionne is often defined as sophisticated when critics or fans try to describe her music. She fused the generes of Pop and Soul like no other, while incorporating jazz, gospel, and R&B into her music as well. "She was the Queen of Easy," and critics were unable to categorized her music. She obviously had a three to four octave voice and drew from her gospel background to give soulful performances, yet she was able to keep them sweet and refined to appeal to a broad audiences. Her voice has been described as a fine wine, peculiar and able to straddle between difficult notes easily, since Dionne had to adapt quick to difficult chord and time changes often present in Burt Bacharach's music.

She was authentically Dionne, where as entertainers like Diana Ross were not. People say Diana wanted to be the "Black Streisand," but Diana really just wanted to be like another Dionne. Yes, Motown incorporated more show tunes into Diana's work than Dionne had ever done, but Dionne recorded and performed standards at the very beginning of her career. And her own hits were created to become standards not hits, which was very anti-Motown. Streisand clearly had to respect Warwick, but she did not respect Diana, and the music-goers alike had the same sentiments. Dionne was the "first" to cross-over with the help of Burt Bacharach and Hal David, and be accepted as authentic because her approach was genuine and her songs just had mass appeal to music listeners across all genres.

Dionne's 7th studio album, "Here Where There Is Love," is a masterpiece. It encompassed the essence of her very sound. By this time, she was a bona fide Pop star, a legend of her time. She had several hit records on both the Pop and R&B Charts, bound to win Grammys, had Pop music's most esteemed writing duo producing songs tailored for her voice which would become Pop music classics, and artists clamoring to cover her songs before they were even released, which began early on in her career. Back in 1964, UK singer Cilla Black covered her classic record,"Anyone Who Had A Heart," and released it in Britain before Scepter Records could put the record out overseas. Black's version of "Anyone..." reached number one.

"Here Where There Is Love" boats multiple classics, and the album plays out like a true LP, where no track is undesirable to the ears. The album beings with a pop-soul fused track entitled "Go With Love," that features a waltz sound. The second track is the definitive offering of the Burt Bacharach and Hal David's career defining anthem, "What the World Needs Now Is Love." Although, Dionne was not the first female artist to release this song, which is a rarity, she claims she recorded the demo for the record, which was supposed to be released by a male artist. According to some accounts, claim that Dionne was officially offered the song in 1965, and turned it down, in which it was subsequently offered to Jackie DeShannon. Whatever the case may be, Dionne's rendition is the best. The vocal was clearly written for her voice and singing style. According to reports, DeShannon had extreme difficulty recording the song, and Bacharach made DeShannon record the song so many times her voice began to give out.

The third track "I Just Don't Know What To Do With Myself," was released as a single in 1966. Although, Dionne was not the first artist to release the song, she recorded the demo more than likely, and its certainly a gem. Her vocal performance is impeccable and uses falsetto and a strong head vocal. The title track of the album offers one of the team of Bacharach/David/Warwick's best records. The record is a waltz/bossa nova fusion and just impeccable. It's eclectic yet sophisticated, and Dionne offers a great vocal performance. The single "Trains, Boats, and Planes" is also featured on the album, its arguably one Dionne's most sophisticated records with a subtle social message.

The hit rendition of "Alfie," is featured on the record as well. Burt wanted Dionne to record the song, and arranged it with Dionne's voice in mind. However, record executives explained to Bacharach that he could not have Dionne record the record because she was not affiliated with the the film studio. So, the US version of the film featured Cher, and the UK version of the film featured Cilla Black, which Dionne became infuriated over. Burt wanted Dionne to record the song anyway. After 40 plus recordings from other artists, Dionne finally recorded the song, and it became a hit after Dionne performed it at the 1967 Academy Awards.

Other features on the album include a cool jazz soul record entitled "I Never Knew What You Were Up To," and and standards "As Long As He Needs Me," and "I Wish You Love," in addition to Dionne's take on the Bob Dylan classic "Blowin' In the Wind," which doesn't fit with the rest of the album, in sound, which is a characteristic motif with at least one or two songs on Dionne's previous two albums.

Here is a clip of "Here Where There Is Love":

BLACK MUSIC MONTH

Hello Everyone,

It's been forever and a day since I've updated my blog. I plan on updating it everyday from now on, especially for the month of June, being that June is Black Music Month. So stay tuned!

Best,

DJ Philly Soul.... P.S. I've started a radio show with a good friend of mine. The show is entitled "Love On Your Radio," and I can be heard playing the best mix of contemporary R&B and classic soul, quiet storm material.

You may listen at www.wptsradio.org (stream via iTunes for an optimal listening experience). If you're in Pittsburgh, you may tune in at 92.1 FM WPTS.