Back from an inexplicable lazy summer. This blog began with all the enthusiasm only the absolutely naïve can possess: I would blog with courage, discipline and excitement. The music would just appear and followers would just ….follow. I just knew there were tons of folks that wanted to listen to great music supported by good writing.
I’ve failed on every imaginable level. Discipline collapsed after the first few posts and I never caught beyond my hopefulness that I would just be “found”. Despite the Twitter landing spot on my page- I don’t twitter or tweet. Nevertheless, there is some part of me that feels this work still deserves a place in the this space. At work, I listen to so many music podcasts and independent radio shows featuring great music by artists that still believe soul music and R&B are viable, vaunted and respectable music dialogues. So, I’m not quite ready to throw in th towel on my little adventure.
With those thoughts, we’re back for another Funk It Friday session:
Bring It On/Dira; Beautiful, Loved & Blessed/Tamar Davis; I Never Felt Like this Before/Mica Paris; Where Has the Love Gone/Steve Harvey ft. KK; Lost in the Moment/Marcell & the Truth; Bus Stop/Don-e; Mountains/Seek; Smooth My Heart/Cree Summer; Look at Me Now/Morrison Slick; How Sweet Life Is/Angela Johnson f/Julie Dexter
If you occupy space on any land in the contiguous United States, you’re melting. In DC, we suffered through the ironic juxtaposition of a heat wave and power outage. Somehow, not having working a/c makes the heat feel hotter. There’s no doubt the bold Devil spends more and more summers walking above ground and bringing his frighteningly untenable living conditions with him.
It’s no accident that this weeks installment is less head-bang and more head roll. The heat is a thief of Friday’s traditional frenetic energy. We are grateful for the privilege of a gasping breath. The thought of thinking is draining. As I listened to this ep. I marveled at how mellow the beats played. Frankly, I doubted it was really funky enough and considered passing it on to the Sunday Slowdown segment. It’s a collection of modern music with neo-retro (is that possible?) interpretations. Each song carries hints of memories of classic soul and the untrained ear might even think of consulting a calendar to check the production dates. While the best days of R&B may be in the past, these artists exist in the full present and you can hear their passion for the old-fashioned 50’s and 60’s soul. Critics with a better ears and a firmer grasp of music legitimately debate the usefulness and authenticity of these retro-soulists. I just know what I like, and even if the critics prove this music is historically fallible, nothing more than an honest bastard from regal stock,the feeling it gives is authentically toe-tapping. Friday is here and it’s hot. The funk is turned down just a bit, but the beats stay true.
Why do we only get three days to play? Well, I need to make the most of them and it kicks off with soul and rhythms. It’s a set of mellow funk, something to get you warmed up without sweating out your weaves. More head-bop than booty-shake. It’s still funkin’…..
The Game-Nathaniel Roberts/Be Your Man=Tru Skyy f. KayNeliz/Sweet Necessity-Jimetta Rose/Dreamin’-Crossrhodes/I See You (Zone Out)-K. Raydio f. J.Dante/Life Goes On-Soulfolk/Build This World-Joyo Velarde/Let’s Go Back-Dira f. Omar/Hold Tight-Loose Ends/Starting Over-Siji/Right Here-Seek/Do You Like the Way-Cee Lo f. Lauryn Hil
Another hiatus. Another resurrection. Thankfully, I ‘m old enough to know the failure rate of New Year’s resolutions and thus avoid the trap of setting goals beyond just getting out of bed in the morning. I’ve replaced ‘goals’ with ‘hopes’, procuring sympathy for myself. For instance, I only ‘hoped’ I’d be more disciplined about posting music more often. If it weren’t for the hard-working music bloggers that inspired me with their discipline and devotion, I wouldn’t have conceived the Aural Pleasure Palace. You look out at yourself and observe that your inspirations and your aspirations are walking on separate sides of the street.
So, I’ve been fledgeling, and doubting I’m up for the tasks at hand. When you’re down and feeling defeated, it’s the beats that lift you. To make up for lost time, I’m serving up two mixes in the Funk It Friday series. As always, we try to drop a little funk, a little punk, and R&B in all its’ incarnations. Here’s two hours of music that should take where you need to go on Friday afternoon: homebound, club bound, but never tightly wound. If they ask you what you’re doing, tell ’em you’re just “funking it”.
Enjoy
Ashaki
Funk It Friday 5
L.O.V.E (Terri Walker)/Gettin’ Happy (The Family Stand)/ The Pressure (Andrew Roachford)/I’ve Grown (Christion)/PYT (Noel Gourdin)/Missyou (Musiq)/Keep This Fire Burning (Bev. Knight)/Lost My Mind (Jamie Hawkins)/When It’s All Said & Done (Nine 20)/Underneath a Red Moon (N’Dea Davenport)/So Hot (R. Patterson)/You’re Not My Girl (Ryan Leslie)
Funk It Friday
All I Said (Guru f. Macy Gray)/Four Alarm Fire (YahZarah)/Mind Blowin’ (N’Dambi)/I’ve Got the Love (Chante Moore)/I Need You (Darien Brockington)/Coming Back (Smove f. Jess Roberts)/Ridin (Amp Fiddler)/My Favorite Nothing (Janelle Monae)/I’m a Lady (Santigold)/Lemonade (Fly Moon Royalty)/Lovesick (Tiara Wiles)/Anymore (Tweet)
It’s a brisk Autumn night in the District. I want Hot Apple Cider, a flannel blanket and a fireplace. In other words, it’s the exact opposite of the Funk It Friday music selection. Tonight we travel to the tropical lands of the Caribbean islands, and bring back Jamaica’s finest legal export: reggae.
I composed this podcast knowing I was deep out my range. My roots don’t go further south than Mississippi and I’ve mismanaged every possible opportunity to bask and skin burn in the islands lapped by the Caribbean sea. I can do no more than eavesdrop on even a casual conversation about reggae, ska, calypso or soca. For most Americans, especially those from the Stax/Motown aesthetic, meaning those that believe American R&B is the singular definition of MUSIC, rhythms and beats from “foreign” lands rarely receive more than a cursory listen. Caribbean-derived musical genres never fail to demand engagement. It is always a bold invitation to release, relax and escape. Yet, I don’t understand enough about it to be appropriately seduced.
So, in an amateurish pilgrimage to discover root music not seeded in Tennessee dirt, I’m tilling Jamaican soil, a good portion of it watered by the Marley family genius. However, diversity abounds with selections from Third World, Maxi Priest and Wailing Souls. In an arrogant lack of restraint, these traditionalist are joined by hip-hop and neo-soul remixes of Marley classics.
Autumn leaves crowd the landscape. Add rum to the cider. Pretend the fireplace is a sandy beach midnight bonfire and just FUNK IT! Jah-style…
Ashaki
Cool Me Down (Tiger)/Groove Master (Arrow)/Now that We Found Love (Third World)/Mother & Child Reunion (Wailing Souls)/Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (Michael Rose)/Just a Little Bit Longer (Maxi Priest)/I’m Hurting Inside (Cedella Marley)/Sweet Jamaica (Tony Rebel)/Rebel Music- 3 O’clock Roadblock (Krayzie Bone)/Riding High (Bob Marley)/No More Trouble (Erykah Badu)/Live On (Wailing Souls)/Johnny Was (Guru)/OK Corral (Wailing Souls)/Tumblin’ Down (Ziggy Marley)/Trenchtown Rock-Live (Bob Marley)
It’s Friday..AGAIN. In every pocket of America, the (fortunately, still-) employed are running to 5pm like Usain Bolt to a Gold medal. Here’s another dose of funk to celebrate survival of week #37.
Track List:
You Make It Heave (Full Flava f/Joy Rose)/The Real Thing (Lisa Stansfield)/Take Me Home Tonight (Cooly’s Hot Box)/If You Wanna (Roy Davis Jr f/Terry Dexter)/Fly Away (Goapele)/You Make Me (Monday Michiru)/Let’s Fall in Love (Incognito f/John-Christian Urich)/Find Your Way Again (Gabrielle)/Taste of Bitter Love (D’Influence)/Blew My Cool (Eleana Young)
I tripped over the melody and lost the beats. I started this blog believing that time would bend to my wishes, and every waking moment would find me dribbling words and phrases down the lane, and sinking dope podcasts from well beyond the 3 pt. marker. That did not happen. This is what really happened: I dabbled with mixes and playlists that bricked the backboard, and sang hollow notes of failure out of my headphones. I had Michael Jordan hopes with Sam Bowie talent.
If Fall and Winter find abject laziness masquerading as “seasonal hibernation”, then Spring and Summer are the times to shake-ass and shovel off that extra set of hips we picked up between the Thanksgiving turkey and Mardi Gras King Cake. So the soundtrack has got to be funky grooves that hint at unlimited potential to swing, shimmy, and stomp. In that spirit, the Aural Palace introduces Funk It Friday: a playlist to shrug-off the toejam of another work week slaving in the corporate field for paper pennies and wooden nickels.
From 9 to 5, Friday is about FUNKING IT! Project not finished?! Too damn bad. Contacts not made? Hey, it’ll hold. It’s Friday and we’re revisiting the absurdity of a 5/2 work/play ratio. We’re pulling out our “Wrap It Up” clock and slamming it on the desk. Define Friday by ONE question: How do I BLOW THIS JOINT?!?! We hit the ground running away from the terror-firma of our corporate cloaks. We’re ready to crop some hours from the workplace, and binge on gin and sin if we’re celebrating with the ignorant magic possessed by twentysomethings.
If Birthday #40 is just 365 winks away, the head-banging and club-hopping bass of the Friday night hang-out joints will only aggravate that arthritic knee we’ve complained about. “Funk” for us might need to be scaled and stripped down as to discourage unnecessary “old man in the club” escapades. We can’t “dig potatoes” and “pick tomatoes”, and we shouldn’t be trying to impress our little cousins by “doin the dougie” at the Family Reunion picnic. We might remember when Friday meant a committee meeting of flyboys seeking manhood in rum & Coke while ladies squeeze a Burger King ass into tofu & granola-sized jeans. We were brave, stupid and shameless behind cheap liquor, funky beats, steamy rooms and the illusion of unlimited freedom known only to the young and the stuporous. Lips lie, hands grope, pelvis to pelvis push..push…back into the memories of songs from the days of high-top fades and asymmetrical cuts, baggy jeans and rope chains. But since flirtations with the past will never bring memories to fruition, with dignity, we should go quietly into the Electric Slide line and pray we don’t step on some brothas white patent leather gators. Well….maybe we ain’t that old, yet.
Hook up the I-pod and download the tunes. If you get too loud and people start staring, just tell ’em to Funk It!
Ashaki's Aural Pleasure Palace 
Recent Comments