Excerpts from This Morning's Alphabits: Cup Runneth Over

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Common, Eminem, 88 Keys, Q-Tip, Jazzanova. I have gotten my hands on music from the likes of the aforementioned artists recently and have blissfully reorganized my playlist, titled Random Dope. Beats, lyricism, poetic prowess, intriguing album theme, instrumentation and nostalgia all play heavily into what I am most impressed by musically as of late. I managed to view on someone’s blog a live performance of a freestyle session with Mos, Nas, De La and will.i.am. A young man I knew when I was in high school (though he may or may not remember me), named Naledge, dropped an ill freestyle, “life is but a dream and waking up is the nightmare.” Yep. Sure did. And one.

The instruments in Jazzanova’s “Let Me Show Ya” are phenomenal. So much so that it’s sampled on another song on the same album, that features Phonte. Absolute wonderment. I’m not sure if Phareezy or Kanyeezy produced the Common track “Punchdrunk Love” on his upcoming, but me likes. It’s one o’ dem sexy joints, but the beat is amazing. It even has one of those late-’80s/early-’90s digital sound effects, often used by Keith Sweat and Tracie Spencer. You’ll know it when you hear it. You can almost smell the silk shirts from their videos; go ahead… breathe deep. Black Milk featuring Royce and Elzhi… murderous.

Now, Kanyizzle set me back a step. His overly overused Autotune, T-Pain-knockoff sound throughout his entire album is quite the turn off. However, I read an article that made me rethink his reasoning behind using the synthesized voice for everything, and I plan to give the album another good listen at some point in the near future. But I’m sure it will be challenging because of the similarity of the songs. That’s all for now. But it’s a lot. I plan to return much sooner than I have of late with more ramblings on how music keeps me sane.

Be good.