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We have just covered Theophilus London, the MC who has no qualms with blending an assortment of musical influences with his own undeniably slick flow. Above is the video for the title track straight off the ”I Want You” mixtape. The video, directed by Va$htie, fits the track just about right with it’s nod to Blow Up. It features a woman in lingerie and the camera-wielding Theophilus wrapped up in a moment of palpable sensuality. The song itself is more of a remix than an original track. Mr London’s lyrics, heavy with sexual tension and seduction, adds further depth to the refined intimacy of Marvin Gaye’s 34 year old song.

Don’t forget you can download the full mixtape here.

Fatima has long been overdue a proper release. The fact is that the Stockholm-raised, London-based songstress has been nicely toasting tracks for her label mates Floating Points and FunkinEven on Eglo Records for a minute now and recorded easily the best track on Shafiq Husayn’s solid debut album. She has the clout to hold her own against hyped producers such as Dam-Funk and her first ever EP, Mind Travellin, is testament to her ability to make the smoothest beats that bit slicker.  The EP is followed by the video for the lead single Soul Glo, which is light on the lyrical content but its an example of early 90’s inspired, jheri curl referencing, synth driven soul at its 21th century best. This one is definitely all about the vibe. Enjoy.

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This year the Notting Hill Carnival will be held on the 29th and 30th August. It’s probably the best street festival in Europe and one of the largest in the world. The first day is known as the Children’s Carnival, this means that the Carnival Floats will be out in force bumping out Soca and Reggae music whilst being tailed by men and women in elaborate outfits that always seem to be a street wide, a lamp post high and covered in every colour of sequin. Day one is a great spectacle for the families and kids, if you find the right spot you and your young’uns could happily dance along with the other party goers. But day two of the Carnival is a different animal altogether. Listen up: leave those kids at home! The focus on the day will shift from the attractive Floats to the Sound Systems aka the Sounds. These are basically free outdoor night clubs and just like real night clubs you will find no two Sounds the same with some way better than others. Recommendations: If you’re the young and rowdy type check out Rampage, which is arguably the most popular Sound each year. Every year they pull out the big acts and play the exclusive tunes. But my personal favourite is Norman Jay’s Good Times. (Sir) Norman Jay always pulls in a good vibe and good people with the finest selection of music by a mile.

Why am I giving you a crash course on the Notting Hill Carnival? Well, blame it on Warrior One’s new EP Bad Like Jimmy Cliff. After my first listen of the EP, I felt the need to find a street party and bruk out like my feet wanted to escape my shoes. Warrior One are a London based duo that are fusing UK Funky with Jamaican Bashment music. Now I am not the biggest fan of Bashment or UK Funky, I think UK Funky is a scene (with a terrible name) still trying to find its legs and while Bashment has some excellent moments, it is too one dimensional for my liking. Somehow Warrior One found a way to mix both and produce an excellent EP.

The standout track off the EP is the title track, Bad Like Jimmy Cliff. The opening seconds of the track features NinjaMan, one of the most notorious thugs in Dancehall music, talking about his childhood admiration for the Jimmy Cliff’s Gangster in the film, The Harder They Come. What comes after this speech is one of the most unrepentant bass lines I heard in a long, long time. The construction of this tune is ridiculously simple: a few trumpet flares, a basic hi hat and bass drum with the repeated NinjaMan line but when you add all these elements with that bass line you end up something special.

The whole EP is a great first effort from Warrior One. It’s no easy feat taking mainstays from Bashment (The album features a Bashment MC’s, raid sirens, the ‘pull up’s, Bashment bass lines and drum patterns) to transpose them to the time signature of UK Funky. It’s this uniqueness that makes this EP readymade for upcoming Notting Hill Carnival, especially for day two. It’s as danceable as any UK Funky tune and doesn’t require knowledge of certain dance moves like Bashment music. Also every song on the EP is designed to be played at Carnival-level volumes aka AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE!! I recommend you cop the EP (and a glass of Wray and Nephew’s rum with plenty of ice) and do the same.

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Ok, so we’ve covered this OK Go song before but not this version of the video. I can’t say I am the biggest fan of the band’s music but I’ll give credit where it’s due and the band deserves it for this video, which is probably their best to date. Thinking about it, I would say that this video has trumped Jay-Z’s On To The Next One to the best music video of the year so far. Instead of On To The Next One’s insanely high production values, OK Go stuck to their low budget, high creativity concept and won.

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I remember the day clearly; a friend and I were fooling around on the net. We found this video of a skater falling off his board and snapping his forearm. Yep, the video was grim but still funny as hell. We were just about to have a second viewing when my flatmate stepped into my room. ‘Oh yeah, I’ve just heard on the radio: Jay Dee from Slum Village has just died’. My friend stopped the video and the atmosphere in the room dropped. My flatmate sat down next to me ‘Sorry bro… Who was Jay Dee?’

That was the thing about Jay Dee or J Dilla, before his death he was largely slept on. I first came to know J Dilla as a member of Slum Village, the solid yet slightly dull Hip Hop unit. The group had something that kept me listening and that something was the producer, Jay Dee. I remember the first time I heard ‘Raise It Up’ the beat was insane but the flow over it was lacklustre. So I wasn’t surprised when J Dilla left the group, he had a spark and he wanted to blow.

The first time I noticed his genius was by accident. In 2004 the rapper MF DOOM had joined up with the producer Madlib to form the group Madvillain and their first release was Madvillainy. I remember putting that album on to this day. My mind literally blew, imploding then exploding. The eargasm was intense and Madlib was my new idol. In my mission to get more Madlib in my life I came across the album Champion Sound by Jaylib, the Madlib and J Dilla duo. J Dilla’s skill had me hooked and I waited patiently for the next J Dilla project.

The album Donuts was released three days before J Dilla’s death. The album was purely instrumental and it showcased a level of production that can only be described as genius. Probably inspired by his time working with Madlib, J Dilla took a sample then sliced and pasted to form his trademark luscious layers over stripped down beats. His manipulation of a sample wasn’t as extreme as DJ Shadow or Exile but the manner of his loop creation was unique yet it sounded accessible. It was like he took a sledgehammer to his finely honed neo-soul vibe and dented it repeatedly. To take a song by 70’s rock band 10CC and then to cut a single line from the song and loop it to make Waves, frankly trying to understand that level of mastery hurts my brain. Donuts was an instant classic and was a template for upcoming hip hop producers like Jnerio Jarel and Black Milk who were getting bored of carrying DJ Premier inspired boom-bap in their backpacks. In fact I’m struggling to think of an album in the last 5 years that has been as influential as this one. (If you can think of one, let me know in the comment section)

So to answer that 4 year old question, Who was Jay Dee? Well, He was one of the most influential musicians of our times having created masterpieces independently (check out Ruff Draft, Jay Loves Japan and the excellent The Shining for more goodness) and working alongside some of the finest producers (Q-Tip, ?uestlove, Madlib) to create the genre defining hip hop/R’n’B/soul soundscapes for the likes of Common, A Tribe Called Quest, Erykah Badu, Janet Jackson, De La Soul, The Pharcyde, Ghostface Killah etc . With the aid from his immense back catalogue, which ranged from the warm soul vibes to the street corner bangers, the tilt of underground hip hop and it’s fans shifted. To say that J Dilla is still a creative force is no exaggeration. The man who’s became a cult figure forged a path for other groundbreaking artists such as Jay Electronica, Kanye West and Flying Lotus to follow. And to boot he made one of my favourite songs ever, The Light by Common.

So join me for a minute in celebrating the life of J Dilla. One of the best to ever do it.

The Pharcyde- Drop

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A Tribe Called Quest- 1nce Again

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Janet Jackson- Got Till Its Gone

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Q-Tip- Vivrant Thing

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Common- The Light

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J Dilla- Stop

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Ghostface- Whip You With A Strap

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J Dilla- Won’t Do

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Joy Orbison blindsided everyone when he came out of thin air back in the summer of 2009 and dropped the track Hyph Mngo on us. Hyph Mngo has since been placed into every taste maker’s Best Songs of ‘09 list and Joy Orbison has been listed as one to watch (again) in 2010. I was kind of cynical about this praise; Hyph Mngo is a mind blowing track but you surely can’t hype someone that much after his one and only release to date, excluding the B-side Wet Look. But of course Orbison has proven me wrong with some huge remixes, especially his take on Four Tet’s Love Cry and he looks set to drop his new three track EP, interestingly named The Shrew Would Have Cushioned The Blow, on the 22nd February.

The video below features So Derobe, one of the leaked tracks from the upcoming EP.  This Dubstep track was made with the dancefloor in mind and features a craftily chopped Boyz II Men sample over a bassline that isn’t overcooked but definitely bubbling. The beauty of this song is its nod to the 2step Garage scene. The foundation for So Derobe was set about 10 years ago by the likes of MJ Cole and Wookie and Joy Orbison has masterfully constructed the rest. This track represents all that’s good in Dubstep right now, its a genre that’s not afraid to be extrospective. In a music scene that varies so much; from brash, subwoofer melting basslines (see Caspa) to brooding, minimal soundscapes (see Burial), Dubstep has shown it has the legs to support the new dimensions being provided by the likes of Joy Orbison without losing the plot (see Drum ‘n Bass).

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I followed Mr Jones and Mr Ball onto this website for a reason. It wasn’t for the fame or the women, although I was promised plenty of both by Jacque Jones. The video above is one of the main reasons I joined. Several weeks back I showed the music video for Ólafur Arnalds‘ Ljósið to some people and they swiftly dismissed it due to the neo-classical music . I decided then that it would be a good idea to get touch with a more receptive bunch of people. Hopefully that’s you.

The beauty of this computer animated video, made by Esteban Diácono,  is its deceiving simplicity. The concept of this video is pretty basic but to convey the emotion and complexity of the music with such grace takes serious skill. This was originally a fan made video but it became the official music video. I don’t blame the record company for the decision, you rarely see a music video so perfectly in sync with its subject. Simply awesome.

I was browsing through the BBC’s Sound of 2010 long list, the ‘next-to-blow’ list compiled by over 160 music critics, bloggers, radio DJs and Music Industry folk. The list contained several note-worthy artists; The Drums, Marina and The Diamonds, Gold Panda, Ellie Goulding and Joy Orbison. None of these artists are unknown, they were all hyped throughout 2009 with Joy Orbison’s Hyph Mngo arguably the best tune from the last year (Owl City was also long listed even though he previously reached US No.1 with Fireflies, and that’s a truly awful song). What surprised me most was the omission of jj from the  BBC’s long list.

jj (single case J’s) came to my attention under a wave of hushed excitement. Firstly no one knew if jj was a solo musician or a group, woman, man or beast. There was no press release from their record label, Sweden’s Sincerely Yours to follow their two track EP No.1. All anyone knew at the time was jj probably originated from Gothenburg, Sweden and the music being pumped out was exceptional stuff. No.1, with its ying-yang singles, the blissful ‘My Life, My Swag’ and brooding ‘My Swag, My Life’ featured dream-like vocals over ambient layers. It can be best described as Balearic Pop, that type of music you want to hear on a post-rave comedown. With the release of their debut LP No.2, they proved that their excellent EP was no fluke, they upped the ante and managed to effortlessly mix elements of hip hop and Enya (combined with random video snippets and unedited recording session coughs and giggles) into their brand of Acoustic Guitar-driven Balearic Pop…Trust me, it sounds much better than I let on. After you hear Ecstasy (check the video below), jj’s trippy, codeine-laced take on Lil Wayne’s Lollipop, you’ll be planning that heavy weekend in Miami or Ibiza. No.2 was one of the most euphoric albums of 2009 and was further proof of how good pop music could be without the usual record label parameters.

My sentiments were shared by the U.S. record label Secretly Canadian who started the new year by signing jj, and we can now expect a new album around March 2010. Unsurprisingly the new album will be called No.3. jj were also nice enough to reveal their identity; they are a male-female duo by the names of Elin Katlander and Joakim Benon. So take this from me, Secretly Canadian, Sincerely Yours and multiple other best of 2009 lists, jj is one to watch for 2010, and hopefully beyond. Shame on the BBC.

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