1. Gary Bartz NTU Troop - Celestial Blues
2. OutKast - Idlewild Blue (Don'tchu Worry 'Bout Me)3. Nelly Furtado - Afraid
4. N*E*R*D - Waiting For You
5. Dead Prez - Bigger Than Hip-Hop
6. Lady Sovereign - Gatheration
7. Girl Talk - Smash Your Head
8. Eric Benet - Love Don't Love Me (Neptunes Remix) ft. Clipse
9. Uncle Charlie Wilson - Beautiful (Remix)
10. Jackson 5 - ABC
11. Michael Jackson - You Rock My World
12. Don Blackman - Holding You, Loving You
13. Fabolous - Can You Hear Me?
14. Fergie - London Bridge
15. Girl Talk - Too Deep
16. Nelly Furtado - Maneater (Remix) ft. Lil' Wayne
17. OutKast - Morris Brown
18. Snoop Dogg - Drop It Like It's Hot (Remix) ft. Jay-Z
19. T.I. - Kick It At The Hotel
Celestial Blues by Gary Bartz NTU Troop I first heard when listening to Giles Peterson's BBC Radio 1 show on July 2nd 2006 (it was after midnight when this track was played so I guess technically it was July 3rd) in my room at my dad's flat. It was during that spell of unemployment before the Rhythm Project and The Southern happened. I was sat listening to the radio online on my computer with headphones on. Pharrell Williams was a guest co-host on the show and for the first hour they played a selection of The Neptunes greatest hits up until that time. In the second hour Giles asked Pharrell to select some of his favourite songs and one of his picks was this Harlem Bush Music piece of wonderful. He told a story about how he'd been on tour with N*E*R*D and just got back home to Virginia Beach where some friend dragged him out to a club. He said he was just sitting, chilling, when the 'like, 19 year-old' DJ threw this song on. He was blown away and couldn't believe he hadn't heard it before. He immediately ran up to the DJ booth to ask the kid what it was.
It had the same effect on me. I was rapt at the majestic simplicity of the baseline immediately and was in love by the time the saxophone and vocals came in simultaneously and harmonised with each other. 'Expand your mind/Don't let it wither and die' the lyrics preached wise and enchantingly. It is a fantastic piece of funky, uplifting jazz. Bartz' audacious saxophone solos are gorgeous.
A year or so later I was playing it while on shift at The Southern and our resident vinyl junkie Robin 'Burnsey' Burns was sitting at the bar. His ears pricked up and he looked at me; 'Gary Bartz?! Nice.' He asked me if I'd heard the album the track came from, I hadn't and so the next time I saw him he came with a burned CD ripped from the Harlem Bush Music vinyl. Good music fans share great music with other music fans. Hell of a record.
Idlewild Blue (Don'tchu Worry 'Bout Me) and Morris Brown, 2 singles from the soundtrack/album from OutKast's lukewarmly received Idlewild movie would have leaked around the same date I was listening to that Giles Peterson show. Most likely I was sat in exactly the same spot for the first listens of both of these as I was for Celestial Blues. I remember that the general response to the new Andre and Big Boy music was that it was similarly underwhelming as the film it was made for. Both song struck a chord with me though. The bluesy guitars and harmonicas, the Doo-Wop vocals and 3 Stacks continuing his trend of singing in favour of rapping from The Love Below on Idlewild Blue, all worked for me. And the New Orleans-style first-line funk of Morris Brown made me want to second-line.
This was also the era of Nelly Furtado's close affiliation with Tim 'Timbaland' Mosley. She'd been quiet for a while, 3 years since her commercial flop Folklore after the hit of her (actually quite rubbish) first album, the terribly titled Whoa, Nelly! Timbo had had a relatively quiet few years as well but was at the peak of a massive creative resurgence after having lost his way for a time following the death of Aaliyah in 2001. Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds was just around the corner and his name was enough to front his first solo record, Shock Value by the begining of 2007, but this was the first move in his comeback bid to take over the world. He signed Furtado to his label and he and his protege Danja handled production on the majority of her next album Loose. It was huge. Afraid is the album opener and is a decent tune, but once again; the same seat, in the same room, in the same flat would be the setting for my first encounter with it.
There is also a Maneater remix featuring the ascending Lil' Wayne on the tail end of the disc. It is fantastic. The beat is deep and atmospheric, Wayne sounds perfect, like a stoned alien, his flow makes rapping sound as simple and natural to him as breathing. And when the Nelly vocals come in the beat lends them a nice new context. Timbo was catching fire again. First play; same seat.
Waiting For You, the weird semi-interlude track tacked on to the back of Wonderful Place from N*E*R*D's prog-pop opus sophomore album Fly Or Die, I heard for the first time a few years earlier. That one was in my room at Gilmore Heights, before the unemployment and the moving back in to my dad's place. I had managed to resist listening to many of the leaks that were kicking about online from before the albums release and so my first experience of the song was in the context of the full record on the day of it's release. I went out early to buy it and rushed home to listen to it. The debut album, In Search Of, had fast become, and to this day remains, one of my favourite albums of all time, so Fly Or Die had a high benchmark to clear. It didn't. That first listen I felt a little disappointed. It was a strange record. An interesting record for sure. It was poppier in parts than I would have expected, with some bizarre collaborations (the Madden brothers?!) and a mad mix of musical styles all thrown into the blender together. I liked it but wasn't sure I was going to love it.
Later that day I went out to Oxygen bar on Infirmary Street, to have a few drinks with some mates and I remember discussing the album with Sod, who had liked the album a lot more on first listen than I had and Blair who'd had a similar reaction to it that I had had. It's interesting how Sod's enthusiasm for the record made me listen to it a little differently when I got home, and quickly the album grew on me. 2 years later I was still bumping it and obviously Waiting For You had called out to be included on this mix. It really is a weird little ditty, just Pharrell telling the story of a family fishing trip gone wrong over some strings, strummed guitar and some bongos in the outro. So we come back once again to that seat, that room, that flat, because it too was where I was sitting when I put this (and many others) compilation together.
A word about that seat; it was a deeply unspectacular and not particularly comfortable, black office swivel chair. No arm rests. It stayed at my desk, which is where I am sure it is still now as I write this. I sat there for hours and days in front of my slow but functional desktop computer, reading about film and music, messing around on MySpace and most importantly watching videos and listening to music. It was a starting point and also a stop off along the way. You see, many of the songs on this CD, as I have detailed already, started their journey with me from the same location; Celestial Blues, the new OutKast and Nelly ones along with new songs by Lady Sovereign and... Fergie's London Bridge?! Interesting. I never knew I liked this song. July 2006, I still wanted Lady Sovereign to happen, too. Sometimes things make even less sense with hindsight. That said; London Bridge is a bit of a banger.
All the rest of the songs on it had set of with me elsewhere and maybe took different paths before joining me again at this rendezvous point. Dead Prez' Bigger Than Hip-Hop was always around but it would have come to the forefront of my musical consciousness again with the near weekly trips to Medina on a Saturday night at that time where my big cousin Nasty P would DJ and could be depended on to play it. The 2 Girl Talk tracks were predictably played to me at George's place. He knew I would dig the insane genius of his multi-track mash-ups. These were both new and still fresh for me, hence their inclusion here.
The Eric Benet remix, Uncle Charlie Wilson version of Beautiful, Jay-Z featuring Drop It Like It's Hot remix and T.I.'s Kick It At The Hotel, I am fairly sure I would have come across using Luke's computer in his room at Gilmore circa 2004. The internet connection on his PC was better than mine (actually, mine may not have been able to access the internet at all at the time) so I used his to find new and rare Neptunes stuff on the Grindin' forum. Both the Benet and Charlie Wilson tracks I consider to be definitive versions, the Jay-Z verse on Drop It is a nice rarity, with it's R. Kelly diss and the beat is dope but still can't hold a candle to the original and the T.I. track is fine but not one of their finest collabs.
A Fabolous album track from 2004's Real Talk LP shows up on the mix and it is a nice enough number but I honestly couldn't tell you what had brought it back to my attention 2 years later. I guess I just must have been revisiting the album and it caught my ear again. I also can't be sure what brought Don Blackman's excellent Holding You, Loving You, a tremendous slice of soulful RnB released in the year of my birth, back into my consciousness.
The Jackson 5 have always been there. Their songs run deep in me. We started our journey together when I was very young and they have never been far away. And even in his waning years Michael was still capable of producing unquestionably perfect pop music like You Rock My World.
All of these songs started somewhere, and then they made their way into my life somehow. And we would hear from each other regularly or rarely but we all ended back together on one day in July 2006 sitting at that one chair at that piece of crap PC and I put them all in one place and now 10 years on that CD has gathered us again. This time I'm sitting with my laptop on my knees in my room in London and it's good to hear from them all again.
This was also the era of Nelly Furtado's close affiliation with Tim 'Timbaland' Mosley. She'd been quiet for a while, 3 years since her commercial flop Folklore after the hit of her (actually quite rubbish) first album, the terribly titled Whoa, Nelly! Timbo had had a relatively quiet few years as well but was at the peak of a massive creative resurgence after having lost his way for a time following the death of Aaliyah in 2001. Justin Timberlake's FutureSex/LoveSounds was just around the corner and his name was enough to front his first solo record, Shock Value by the begining of 2007, but this was the first move in his comeback bid to take over the world. He signed Furtado to his label and he and his protege Danja handled production on the majority of her next album Loose. It was huge. Afraid is the album opener and is a decent tune, but once again; the same seat, in the same room, in the same flat would be the setting for my first encounter with it.
There is also a Maneater remix featuring the ascending Lil' Wayne on the tail end of the disc. It is fantastic. The beat is deep and atmospheric, Wayne sounds perfect, like a stoned alien, his flow makes rapping sound as simple and natural to him as breathing. And when the Nelly vocals come in the beat lends them a nice new context. Timbo was catching fire again. First play; same seat.
Waiting For You, the weird semi-interlude track tacked on to the back of Wonderful Place from N*E*R*D's prog-pop opus sophomore album Fly Or Die, I heard for the first time a few years earlier. That one was in my room at Gilmore Heights, before the unemployment and the moving back in to my dad's place. I had managed to resist listening to many of the leaks that were kicking about online from before the albums release and so my first experience of the song was in the context of the full record on the day of it's release. I went out early to buy it and rushed home to listen to it. The debut album, In Search Of, had fast become, and to this day remains, one of my favourite albums of all time, so Fly Or Die had a high benchmark to clear. It didn't. That first listen I felt a little disappointed. It was a strange record. An interesting record for sure. It was poppier in parts than I would have expected, with some bizarre collaborations (the Madden brothers?!) and a mad mix of musical styles all thrown into the blender together. I liked it but wasn't sure I was going to love it.
Later that day I went out to Oxygen bar on Infirmary Street, to have a few drinks with some mates and I remember discussing the album with Sod, who had liked the album a lot more on first listen than I had and Blair who'd had a similar reaction to it that I had had. It's interesting how Sod's enthusiasm for the record made me listen to it a little differently when I got home, and quickly the album grew on me. 2 years later I was still bumping it and obviously Waiting For You had called out to be included on this mix. It really is a weird little ditty, just Pharrell telling the story of a family fishing trip gone wrong over some strings, strummed guitar and some bongos in the outro. So we come back once again to that seat, that room, that flat, because it too was where I was sitting when I put this (and many others) compilation together.
A word about that seat; it was a deeply unspectacular and not particularly comfortable, black office swivel chair. No arm rests. It stayed at my desk, which is where I am sure it is still now as I write this. I sat there for hours and days in front of my slow but functional desktop computer, reading about film and music, messing around on MySpace and most importantly watching videos and listening to music. It was a starting point and also a stop off along the way. You see, many of the songs on this CD, as I have detailed already, started their journey with me from the same location; Celestial Blues, the new OutKast and Nelly ones along with new songs by Lady Sovereign and... Fergie's London Bridge?! Interesting. I never knew I liked this song. July 2006, I still wanted Lady Sovereign to happen, too. Sometimes things make even less sense with hindsight. That said; London Bridge is a bit of a banger.
All the rest of the songs on it had set of with me elsewhere and maybe took different paths before joining me again at this rendezvous point. Dead Prez' Bigger Than Hip-Hop was always around but it would have come to the forefront of my musical consciousness again with the near weekly trips to Medina on a Saturday night at that time where my big cousin Nasty P would DJ and could be depended on to play it. The 2 Girl Talk tracks were predictably played to me at George's place. He knew I would dig the insane genius of his multi-track mash-ups. These were both new and still fresh for me, hence their inclusion here.
The Eric Benet remix, Uncle Charlie Wilson version of Beautiful, Jay-Z featuring Drop It Like It's Hot remix and T.I.'s Kick It At The Hotel, I am fairly sure I would have come across using Luke's computer in his room at Gilmore circa 2004. The internet connection on his PC was better than mine (actually, mine may not have been able to access the internet at all at the time) so I used his to find new and rare Neptunes stuff on the Grindin' forum. Both the Benet and Charlie Wilson tracks I consider to be definitive versions, the Jay-Z verse on Drop It is a nice rarity, with it's R. Kelly diss and the beat is dope but still can't hold a candle to the original and the T.I. track is fine but not one of their finest collabs.
A Fabolous album track from 2004's Real Talk LP shows up on the mix and it is a nice enough number but I honestly couldn't tell you what had brought it back to my attention 2 years later. I guess I just must have been revisiting the album and it caught my ear again. I also can't be sure what brought Don Blackman's excellent Holding You, Loving You, a tremendous slice of soulful RnB released in the year of my birth, back into my consciousness.
The Jackson 5 have always been there. Their songs run deep in me. We started our journey together when I was very young and they have never been far away. And even in his waning years Michael was still capable of producing unquestionably perfect pop music like You Rock My World.
All of these songs started somewhere, and then they made their way into my life somehow. And we would hear from each other regularly or rarely but we all ended back together on one day in July 2006 sitting at that one chair at that piece of crap PC and I put them all in one place and now 10 years on that CD has gathered us again. This time I'm sitting with my laptop on my knees in my room in London and it's good to hear from them all again.
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