HOT OFF THE PRESSES

I am sitting here at work with no work to do. And thats okay with me since I'm in "just chillin" mode anyways.

Last night, my hubby blessed me with Mary J. Blige's new album, "Reflections (A Retrospective)". Street date is Tuesday, December 19th, I believe, so its an exclusive and yes, a perk of having a spouse in the music biz.

First, don't look to this blog for an unbiased MJB review. I love her! My life and her music fell into some strange parallel universe and it always seemed that whatever she was singing about - I was going through in one way or another.

Second, I've met Mary and she's quite nice. She had a meet & greet before her No More Drama Tour at MCI Center (2002, I think?). That was the first time I saw her sing live and she did not disappoint. I saw her this summer on her Breakthrough Tour in Baltimore. When Mary sings live, she goes to churrrch and you know she's feelin every single word of it.

So back to the new cd...only 4 new tracks and the rest are some of her greatest singles, "Family Affair" "No More Drama" "My Life '06" "Be Happy" and "I'm Going Down" to name a few. All MJB fans should cop it.

As a child of hip-hop, I love the old stuff. Salt'n'Pepa, Rakim, Run DMC, MC Lyte, old school LL Cool Jay, Nas, Biggie, Tupac, Snoop, Ice Cube...they just don't make it like that no more. Now, every song got a dance to go with it. And sampling other peoples beats and music has just taken off into a whole new level. I heard a rap song that recreated Spandau Ballet's "True" and they didn't just take a beat...they jacked the whole song. It sounds horrible. Sorry to some of ya'll hip hoppers under 30...but Puffy killed originality years ago.

My favorite Emcees (living or dead and in no particular order): The NOTORIOUS B.I.G., Tupac, Talib Kweli, Eminem, Rakim, NAS, Method Man, Slick Rick & Doug E. Fresh, Rah Digga, MC Lyte, Snoop, Ice Cube...

Do you see where I'm going with this? Real lyricists with real shit to say...