Sheldon Taylor's Souls of Black Notes

                               The success of Beyoncé's eponymous album confirms her status as the premiere artist of her generation. The album's visual format and initial single purchase point via iTunes expands alternate distribution possibilities beyond conventional record label support.   Husband Jay-Z's Samsung  download strategy was the sign of things to come, Magna Carta: Holy Grail's  revolutionary delivery to consumers resulted in another platinum seller in the Jay-Z catalog, becoming the 13th straight number one album of his career. If Magna Carta was a home run, Beyonce'  is a grand slam. With Columbia Records backed physical product on the way, Mrs. Knowles-Carter will probably have the distinction of having 2014's first number one album. While it is clear s...

This weekend marks the 31st anniversary of the release of  Make It Last Forever, the debut album from R&B crooner Keith Sweat. Equal parts classic soul and hip hop courtesy of fellow Harlem native and album producer Teddy Riley, the seminal long player changed  R&B music. Younger audiences weaned on their parents' record collections were coming of age and required a soundtrack of their own. Three million copies later-- they had one. By the end of '87 R&B was at a crossroads. Prince's Minneapolis Sound was the hottest ticket in town and the success of urban  superstars from the previous era had peaked and its soulful elements were toned down by the mid-Eighties. Albums like Thriller, Whitney Houston, Can't Slow Down, Purple Rain , Rapture, Control and Sign O' The Times  reflected a new creative bar and commercial appeal.   In his autobiography Howling At The Moon: The O...

Hip Hop fans under the age of forty may not recognize the name but they know the game. Too young to witness DJ Hollywood holding court at '70's nightspots such as Charles Gallery and Club 371, there is no doubt they remember Kurtis Blow's booming baritone on  Christmas Rappin' and The Breaks or Big Bank Hank waxing poetic on The Sugar Hill Gang's " Rapper's Delight " to being mesmerized by party rocker Doug E. Fresh and Busta Rhymes' 1997 smash Whoo-Ha (Got You All In Check). Style. Delivery. Showmanship. No matter what flavor that they savored, all points lead back to DJ Hollywood. Each of those artists took a page from the legendary dj/emcee whose autobiography,  It's Star Time captures a critical yet overlooked era in hip hop history. Written in collaboration with Lucio Dutch, prolific author of several books under his  Hip Hop Memoirs imprint, Time is the latest in a series chronicling untold st...

                                                              Huge in stature yet humble and accessible, the late Heavy D transformed four square miles of a neighborhood just outside the Bronx into Money Earnin' Mount Vernon ---a musical mecca from which Al B. Sure, Pete Rock and CL Smooth and Diddy and many others would spring from. Rotund rappers have been around forever. Back in the 70s, seminal star DJ Hollywood ruled the rap roost before hip hop records. Constant fixtures on the first barnstorming rap tours in the mid 80s, the Fat Boys parlayed their popularity into a string of gold and platinum albums, movies and commercial endorsements. There were short-lived West Coast act...

Ask Heaven – Heavy D featuring Chico DeBarge ( Heavy, 1999 ) “ Thanksgiving Day will forever be hard/cause that’s the day we gave my brother to God” On October 30th, TV-One’s popular UNSUNG series kicks off a new season with an episode celebrating the life and career of the late great Heavy D. In a rare departure from his signature ladies anthems and party jams, Hev reworks Led Zeppelin’s iconic Stairway to Heaven into a somber reflection of love, life and the tragedy of addiction.

The Jacksons represent a rich tradition of an elusive legacy of communal Black creativity lost to many since Black music became fixated with the solo act. Unfairly dismissed in light of  brother Michael’s massive success---the older siblings endured unfair ridicule for years. A rrivin on the scene in '69 filling the Black teen idol void left vacant since the demise of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers--- the Jackson Five were a youthful version of their heroes James Brown, the Delfonics and Sly and the Family Stone.   Dynamic front man Michael and brother Marlon attracted the adolescent crowd, Budding young musicians were drawn to Tito and Jermaine’s onstage musical sensibilities. Older brother Jackie (and Jermaine) provided a sex appeal balancing out their "bubblegum"image. More than a group, the J-5 were a franchise. Their youthful take on black cultural expression mesmerized mainstream audiences . The  J-5 would help spearhead a new movement where soul music c...

 After Eric B and Rakim dropped their landmark debut Paid In Full in ’87, they signed the first million dollar record rap contract a year later, promptly releasing their second straight classic, Follow The Leader . Rakim would raise the bar for hip hop lyricism boasting "rhyme displays that went on for days and days" with so much substance he proclaimed that they were "deeper than X-rays". The group's momentum was cut short due to a family tragedy that saw Rakim take a brief hiatus from the music business. Re-emerging from his self-imposed exile, Rakim joined forces with legendary Queens producer Paul C, the architect behind a slew of rap underground classics. Paul's stock was rising when he was tragically murdered under mysterious circumstances in July of '89. The fruits of their labor would survive with  In The Ghetto , the second single from Eric B and Rakim's third album, Let The Rhythm Hit'em. Ghetto fused breakbeats from R&B t...

Nas is the Miles Davis of hip hop. Point blank. Emphatic Wyntonisms aside, Nasir Jones and the brooding jazz master's careers unite them as unlikely kindred spirits. It was no coincidence that both recorded for Columbia Records crafting their signature masterpieces Illmatic and Kind of Blue. They were the offspring of influential parental figures who rejected traditional academia in favor of self-study and confident self-expression. They later transferred that independence toward their work fueling the evolution of their musical formulas in the face of criticism from purists.                                                               Davis’ creative inspirations were cultivated through relationships with idols and contemporaries Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonius Monk while Nas basked in distant admiration...

LL Cool J’s Authentic has inspired mixed reviews since its release. Hip hop junkies might question the high profile collaborations and think Snoop Dog, Nelly and Michael Jackson but a closer listen reveals some of the ingredients that made LL the GOAT still remain. Revisiting the conceptual period where singles like Bad and Back Seat coexisted with Go Cut Creator Go and Crossroads , Authentic’s genius is in its creative approach. Bypassing the need to squeeze into skinny jean hip hop swag or trade coke rap lines to beats from rap’s hottest producers, L enlists a group of stars and newcomers for a record that plays like an impromptu jam session. He unearths R&B diva Alicia Myers, pulls in Eddie Van Halen and Earth Wind and Fire and rocks out with Chuc...