Automatic

There are lots of classic tunes but there are not so many really classic tunes. Really classic tunes don’t come around so often but, when they do, every time you hear them they hit you just like they did the first time. Last week I was out in New York and, as usual, found myself suffering in the midst of a million sweaty bodies in some dive bar on the Lower East Side. I don’t know why I do it to myself, I really don’t. Anyway, the music was getting progressively poorer and more depressing with each tune reminding me of a grim Winter’s day on the Holloway Road when suddenly out of the blue the DJ dropped Automatic by The Pointer Sisters. I couldn’t believe my ears. Was this actually happening? Yes, it was and suddenly my mood changed completely. After all these years, Automatic is just such a dope track it is ridiculous. There is no way you can’t like it and I can honestly say that when I hear it now it sounds as fresh as it did all those years ago when I first heard it as a kid. Forget about their other corny joints – Automatic is the business and will sound just as fresh 20 years from now I guarantee you.

4 More

Stakes Is High isn’t my favorite De La Soul album but, the more I listen to it, the more I think it contains what is rapidly becoming my favorite De La Soul track. Before you try and guess what this is, let me stop you because it isn’t The Bizness or Big Brother Beat or even the title track itself. In fact it’s a tune called 4 More featuring Zhane which is just so banging it blasts the rest of the album out of the water. Normally when rappers have R&B singers on the hook it’s merely an attempt to drive sales, much like a collaboration tee in our industry, but on 4 More the vocal harmonies of the two girls who you might remember from the huge club hit Hey Mr DJ just blend so perfectly with the rhymes of the De La Soul crew it is truly amazing. Add to this some of the best lyrics De La have ever come up with, which is saying something, and you’ve got a certified hip-hop classic. “I got a way with women so I’ll get away with yours” – True genius.

It Wasn't Me

Yesterday I decided that if I could be someone else for the next 20 years it would have to be Shaggy. Don’t panic – I am not losing my mind but think about it. The dude makes a record and shifts millions and millions of units. He then chills for a few years, hangs out between Miami, Kingston and New York picking up ridiculous girls and living it up and then, just as he is getting down to his last few million dollars, he goes out and makes another record that shifts even more units and does it all over again. What a way to live and what a total don Shaggy is. I don’t know how he has totally mastered the game but he has and his new album which apparently is coming out sometime soon will no doubt be just as big as all the previous ones.