Musiq soulchild love lord1/2/2023 ![]() The track is a stark, synthetic product of Atlanta producers Dru Castro and the duo known as BlacKKeyz and as such, an odd fit for a chivalrous soul crooner from Philadelphia. On “Radio,” the lead single from his fifth album, Musiq Soulchild tests out his hip-hop swagger over a beat scaled for the club floor. Portuondo seizes the present as well as the past. Portuondo’s unplugged but futuristic version of the Cuban lullaby “Drume Negrita” with a lean bass line, bata drums alluding to ancient santería and hovering overdubbed vocal harmonies from the Cameroonian singer Richard Bona Ms. The album has lapses: a well-meaning duet with a granddaughter, some gooey string arrangements, some sappy ballads. Portuondo still draws on Cuban songwriters like Pablo Milanés, who sings a duet with her on his “Ámame Como Soy.” But she also looks toward Brazil the venerated Brazilian songwriter Chico Buarque joins her on the philosophical “O Que Será,” a Spanish translation of his “A Flor da Terra.” The title song, “Gracias,” is by Jorge Drexler, from Uruguay. As she sings about “pain, enormous pain, eternal pain” in “Vuela Pena” (“Fly Away Pain”), a bolero undercurrent surfaces and dissolves into rippling piano and guitar arpeggios. On “Gracias” the songs often look back with fondness or melancholy. It is rich, shapely, dynamic and still sultry, with only an occasional foray into the wide vibrato of an older generation. She is 78, but her voice rarely reveals her age. Portuondo’s Cuban roots still show, “Gracias” is her international album. Omara Portuondo, a celebrated singer in Cuba who was discovered worldwide via the Buena Vista Social Club, has concentrated on vintage-style Cuban music, particularly boleros, in her expanded career over the last decade. Paging Kanye West: Please phone home, Common needs you. On that last track Common tries to reassert his legacy: “They say he’s a radical/He don’t fit the game.” But just a moment later he’s discussing Michael Vick and Nelson Mandela in almost the same breath even his social conscience has been muddled. The Neptunes have created beats better suited to a far more enthusiastic and versatile M.C.: shimmering, reverb-thick electro on the title track sauntering lite-soul redolent of A Tribe Called Quest on “Punch Drunk Love” sensational, woozy, blaring horns on “Gladiator.” But even those who can look past the topical dissonance will be confronted with the musical dissonance. “Your physique brings out my freak,” he teases, toothlessly, on “Sex 4 Suga.” On “Announcement” he brings up his corporate pitchman work: “Freestyle paid off, so Lincoln paid me/Now we can push more whips” cars, he means “than slavery.” It’s an unfortunate play on words.Ĭommon has long made politeness his art form acolytes tend to overlook tracks like the slightly garish “Heidi Hoe,” from his 1992 debut album “Can I Borrow a Dollar?” so for hip-hop’s values voters the more salacious songs here will verge on sacrilege. ![]() Worse, Common is at his least imaginative here. He has become less nimble with age (he’s now 36), and there’s hardly any ease left in his locution, even when borrowing phrasings from Jay-Z, the Notorious B.I.G., Greg Nice or the Sugarhill Gang. The Neptunes, who produce seven of the 10 songs here, treat Common as an obstacle to be worked around, which, in fairness, he is. Williams’s blunt-force id with Common’s casual gravity. Pharrell Williams of the Neptunes is the executive producer here, and he has no ambivalence toward pleasure whatsoever. Those albums were mature, eclectic and subtle. But he has also been a self-righteous rapper, though a musically palatable one, thanks especially to Kanye West, who produced the bulk of his two most recent albums, “Be” from 2005, and last year’s “Finding Forever.” For years he has been a bohemian sex symbol, linked with Erykah Badu, Serena Williams and others. But on “Universal Mind Control,” his eighth album, he takes on his most ambitious role yet: someone who enjoys having fun.Ĭommon has long had a complicated relationship with pleasure. The rapper Common has been dabbling in acting lately, with small but memorable roles in “Smokin’ Aces” and “American Gangster.” In the coming film based on the DC Comics superhero cabal the Justice League he will play Green Lantern.
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