Real Music People

When you’ve built up a back catalog of eight studio albums and walk the earth as one of the biggest, most high-profile artists of the ’90s and 2000s, you’re bound to get some mixed signals from those who pay attention to you.

While several tracks connected to specific scenes are also rooted in productions trading in the regal grit that made up so much ’70s soul, the album is not a straight narrative, broken up by tracks like the boom-clap of “Hello Brooklyn” (produced by Bigg D) and the glitzed-out pair of “I Know” (a half-icing Neptunes layer cake) and “Ignorant Shit” (where Just Blaze transforms the Isleys’ quiet storm staple “Between the Sheets” into a high-gloss anthem). And while Jay mentions American Gangster and protagonist Frank Lucas directly, and intersperses some tracks with dialogue, the connection does not overshadow the album. It’s not like he’s yelling “Shaft’s Big Score 2K7!” or “Leonard Part Six, Part Two!” It’s all as natural as Scarface riffing off Scarface.

And that might be the most common complaint about the album — it’s really just another case of Jay-Z being Jay-Z, albeit with different presentation. Unless you know each verse from Reasonable Doubt through Kingdom Come, it might sound like he’s dealing with no variation on well-worn themes, the exact same thoughts and emotions, that make up older tracks about his past as a drug dealer — the rise, the arrogance, the conflictedness, the fall, and all stages in-between. One could say that’s not really saying much, but regardless of context, this is a very good Jay-Z album. He is, for the most part, doing what he has done before: what he does best.

Buff beat master and Justin Timberlake best friend Timbaland performed at PURE Nightclub in Las Vegas over the weekend. The man who’s usually behind the turntables became his own ‘hype man’ by grabbing a mic and bringing the house down and a few panties to go with it.

Partygoers spotted the magnanimous and magnetic music producer getting up close and personal with one girl that he pulled onstage. And when I say personal, I do mean personal. Timbaland was seen chatting it up with the girl throughout the rest of the night and even looked like he was necking her at one point.

Sharon Jones, who recently released 100 Days, 100 Nights, a definite contender for one of the year’s top albums, has just premiered the video for the title track, a song that shows off the more soulful direction the singer has taken on the record. The video, which was shot for $50, looks like it’s straight from 1960s television, in blurry black-and-white, the band on risers behind her as Jones herself takes center stage.

If you haven’t seen Jones and her band, the Dap-Kings (who’ve also worked with Amy Winehouse and Mark Ronson, including in this video), live in action, you’ll soon have your chance. The diminutive 51-year-old singer is just about to start a tour, and if it’s anything like her past ones (besides the excellent, and very funky, musicianship, last year she danced with fans on-stage and played a James Brown medley, among other things), it’s definitely worth checking out.

Billed as the first Santana compilation to span his entire career, it is true that Ultimate Santana does indeed run the gamut from 1969’s “Evil Ways” to 2002’s “Game of Love,” but if you think that means it handles all phases of his career equally, you’d be sadly mistaken. Essentially, this 18-track set plays like a collection of highlights from his Supernatural-era comebacks, spiked with a couple of classic rock oldies — because that’s what it really is.

It contains no less than ten superstar duets, including new numbers with Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger (the streamlined and smoothed “Into the Night,” which has little of Kroeger’s trademark growly histrionics) and Jennifer Lopez and Baby Bash (”This Boy’s Fire,” a dance number where Santana seems incidental), plus a version of “The Game of Love” with Tina Turner (don’t worry, the lighter, brighter, superior Michelle Branch version is here too)

In other words, this is certainly not a hits disc for the fan of his earliest music, or his most adventurous music either; it’s for the pop fans won over by his latter-day comeback, and for those listeners, it’s the hits disc they’d want — but for everybody else, it’s better to seek out other compilations or original albums, because those paint a better picture of what Santana was all about than this crisp, clean collection of lifestyle pop.

50 Cent has picked a new feud with rap rival Lil’ Wayne - just because the Louisiana hitmaker is a terrible songwriter. The tough-talking rapper lost out to Wayne - real name Dwayne Carter - in a recent MTV poll, which credited the Shooter singer as hip-hop’s most important name. When is this guy going to learn to behave at least if not always then at least sometimes, I hope he can manage to behave that much or am I asking for too much. First he lost to Kanye West in the battle of album releases and as a consequence he did not make his tour to Europe. Kanye is not too good either after saying that he is not going to attend MTV bashes after not received any awards at the MTV VMAs. Now 50 Cent is such a waste and a person without work that he can keep finding ways to get into some lame fight so that he is written about in the blogs. Once there should be someone who tells him on his face that he is all things that he tells other are.

Jennifer Lopez is pissing off her record label because she is way too expensive to take care of and doesn’t really make any money for the label. “She costs too much money and doesn’t sell enough,” says a source. “Her last album cover alone cost $60,000 in hair and makeup, lighting, photographers, re-touching, etc. The video budget was in the neighborhood of $300,000.” Since she’s married with Anthony, her carrier is down, she sell all in Spanish, a flop with “como ama una mujer”, flops with Latinos film….. She can really thank P Diddy!!! She is and always has been a mediocre singer. I admire a husband that would encourage his successful wife to step out of her comfort zone and take on new challenges, weather she succeeds or not. She hasn’t changed with the times. The consumer wants an artist to evolve. Her “Brave” album would have done well in the late ’90s, but not anymore. Just doesn’t cut it.

Justin Timberlake’s sixth release from solo bow “FutureSex/LoveSounds” has earned props as the first time that six tracks from one release have hit the top 40 since Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” more than 15 years ago. With Beyoncé now stripped onto “Until the End of Time,” it’s quite likely JT will score the tenacious set’s fourth No. 1—which has already catapulted into the top five at R&B.

The meandering song is clearly a tribute to Prince, with its soul-soaked guitar-driven shuffle and funkified production—think “I Would Die 4 U” on Xanax. While Timberlake’s vocals are smoothed out to near anonymity, as usual, he employs recognizable falsetto amid layers of appreciably creamy harmonies.

It’s Beyoncé, however, that really fuels the passion of the track, with her loosest vocal performance since “Listen” from “Dreamgirls”—and Timberlake is wise enough to sprawl her vocal across the song so that it commands the lead. The mantra here: unstoppable.