If Ayah’s name doesn’t ring a bell, it’s probably because she’s spent more time rocking them. Put simply, this soulful r&b crooner beats a hip hop heart.Prior to releasing her debut LP 4:15, she worked extensively with Toronto emcee Tona, including knocking out two videos, one with each artist featuring the other. She’s also collaborated with underground notables eLZhi (of Slum Village) and Skyzoo (and speculation says she may be featured on a Dr. Dre Detox cut?!), further adding to her boom bap resume.

Perhaps it was all just a necessary tactic to get attention in a hip hop-centric urban community such as Toronto’s. Because when it comes to her solo effort, the focus is placed on the Problem Woman herself. On 4:15 she combines hip hop tendencies with neo-soul groove to produce an eclectic yet comprehensive soul-funk rhythm so uniquely Toronto it could only be conjured this side of Lake Ontario.

Her T-Dot representation is evident in a tradition she carries on with her music videos, as singles “In My Lifetime” and “Believe” take you down the corridors and alleyways Degrassi won’t expose. The same must be said for her lyricism. “Might Not Be” is a raw expose of unattainable demands too often made in relationships, while “He Don’t Want It” is a witty narrative on the flip side. The title track explores her most creative time slot, a quarter past four in the AM. Here it’s not just the concept and the production, the tone and emotion are striking. On the slowest song of the album, instead of letting the listener’s imagination veer, she draws you in.

The singer of Palestinian descent also displays unprecedented versatility on her bluegrass-style bonus track, which I personally think should be put out there for the world to hear instead of tucked away in the back pocket. But that’s just me. An area the album could have been stronger in is length – 9 songs leaves the listener fiending for more and increases the replay value for certain. Then again, a couple more songs would have allowed her to delve deeper into the zone she finds herself in at the wee hours of the morning.

Still, for a debut release 4:15 is more than respectable. It’s the commencement of a movement. It’s the warning shot alerting the world to keep their eyes on Toronto because while Melanie Fiona’s in the spotlight now, Ayah’s waiting in the wings all the same.

By Alborz Mohtashami

Genre: Baroque Pop, Indie Rock, Folk Rock

Artist: Andrew Bird

Album: The Mysterious Production of Eggs

Year: 2005

Andrew Bird is much more than just “elevator music”; in fact, it would be a very inaccurate description of his early solo album “The Mysterious Production of Eggs.” There’s something delicious about Bird’s ability to combine catchy, tongue-in-cheek lyrics with multitrack recorders and loop pedals. “Masterfade” is an excellent example of Bird’s ability to expertly whistle, a trademark that sets him apart and puts Quentin Tarantino’s “Kill Bill” to shame. “The Mysterious Production of Eggs” sounds like a journey through different worlds and different genres. We waver through classical, bluegrass, jazz, pop, and everything keeps building until it explodes into plucked riffs and enthralling rhymes. Original and addicting, Bird is an alliterating musical genius. Who else could rhyme the word “formaldehyde” six different ways?

Karen Lam

Sasha Uribe

Will.i.am is a Grammy award-winning artist, and the frontrunner and creator of the hip hop and soul group The Black Eyed Peas. But most of us already know him for his amazing music and talent as an artist.

What we don’t take time to think about is Will.i.am’s belief in youth, and his conviction that they are truly the future. Through this conviction he established the Will.i.am Scholarship fund     that annually helps send at least one student to college or university, paying for tuition, books, and housing.

Will.i.am also created the Emmy award winning song ‘Yes We Can’; a collage style piece inspired by one of President Barack Obama’s speeches delivered in New Hampshire.  The song features musicians; singers and actors, singing along in a hip hop style to Obama’s speech.

Will.i.am thanks his mother for instilling him with the values that made him the man he is today. He never forgets to thank her, and even as he speaks about her during his appearance on Oprah – where he surprised four students with the Will.i.am scholarship- he was brought to tears thinking about all that his mother has done for him. She inspired him to choose four students who were raised by single mothers as Will.i.am was, and he knows what a strong impact his mother had on him as a young man, because he seeks to have as strong of an impact on the young adults of our nation.

- -Nicole Abi-Najem

RELATIONSHIP REHAB

Many women choose to simply heal and reflect after a long term relationship and take the time to get Re acquainted with the true persona of who they are. Do things you have always wanted to but never had the time because you were simply too caught up in the drama and the trauma of your relationship
Hell.
Learn  Something new, explore new sights, read some life changing books or engage in some hard core retail therapy. Escape to an oasis or spa. Do whatever it takes to make yourself happy. You deserve it! Queen of the universe , Empress of enlightenment, Decadent diva of deliciousness. ..Embrace the alter ego that is dying to express itself to the world. Be proud and move forward with dignity, hope and faith that everything will be fine and you emerge a better and evolved person ready to take on the world!

Indulge your senses in the aromatic elixir of life and bask in its sensual allure. See the world with new eyes and change your perception of things. See how the simplest things you may have overlooked before are now so much vibrant. Profound knowledge awaits us at every corner and it is up to us to find it.

Fozia Baloch.

Genre: Hip Hop

Artist: K’Naan

Album: Troubadour

Year: 2009

At a time where this country is led by a party of Bush-era zealots, world leaders seem to invent international cocktail parties to pat eachother on the back every other month, and hip hop seems comfortably pocketed in stagnancy once again (unless you call Kid CuDi’s

emo opus a breakthrough, but that’s another topic for another album review), K’Naan represents everything that’s right about Canada, everything that’s wrong about the world, and a giant gasp of fresh air to the music world.

The Somali-born Toronto representative (by way of the Bronx) kicked off 2009 with a storm of a sophomore album. Coming from a country most infamously known to the west for pirate activity off its shores, that should hardly come as a surprise. But that doesn’t limit the artistic genius intrinsically worked into the audio/visual potluck that is Troubadour.

K’Naan makes no concessions about his homeland from the intense opener “T.I.A. (This Is Africa)” to the gut-wrenching love tragedy “Fatima”. However, this being his follow-up to the cult hit The Dusty Foot Philosopher, a step up is in order. His evolution as an artist is marked moreso by his ability to express that same emotion while staying close to home, or at least his home away from home. On “People Like Me” he delves into lives dealing with the recession and at war abroad, and on “15 Minutes Away” recounts tales of anticipation while waiting for Western Union money orders to go through.

But this is anything but a downer of an album. More than positive or conscious, K’Naan comes across as inspirational. From telling stories of childhood perseverance on “Somalia” to “Waving Flag” – the official 2010 World Cup anthem (take that in, repeat it a couple times until it sinks in) – he always finds a way to illuminate even the darkest of realities. Teaching is of course a big theme, and he does that with the aptly titled “ABCs”, featuring the legendary Chubb Rock, and goes deeper on “America”, featuring Mos Def and Chali 2na.

Troubadour’s guest appearances alone are newsworthy enough to write home about. Straying from conventions, he gets props from Damien Marley, Adam Levine of Maroon5, and Kirk Hammet of Metallica, all of whom contribute to the album. Speaking of unconventional music, my personal favourite off the album is “Fire In Freetown”, a song with African rhythm fully sung with no rapping. It’s moments like these that truly set K’Naan apart from the rest of the pack.

For one reason or another – none valid – K’Naan doesn’t seem to get the props he deserves from the local hip hop scene. But one listen to Troubadour and those hip hop heads will certainly be turned. This is the finest Canadian urban album of 2009 and FIFA can back that up.

By: Alborz Mohtashami

]]> http://www.experiencethevibe.ca/media/knaam-troubadour/feed/ 2 http://www.experiencethevibe.ca/media/ryan-leslie/ http://www.experiencethevibe.ca/media/ryan-leslie/#comments Mon, 25 Jan 2010 02:39:27 +0000 DJackson http://www.experiencethevibe.ca/?p=161

Album Reviews

Genre: R&B

Artist: Ryan Leslie

Album: Transition

Year: 2009

At a glance, some things appear as though they don’t quite add up. For instance, seeing a big name band rock a small town venue for cheap, or paying hundreds to see the leafs stink on ice. Somehow the math doesn’t seem to equate. Ryan Leslie is another such example, a near musical conundrum considering the 31 year old producer/singer/songwriter/rapper graduated from Harvard at 19 after landing a perfect score on his SATs. To add to the drama, his self-titled debut was released in 2009, after being an in-house Bad Boy producer, having a completed album shelved, and years of writing and producing for the likes of Beyoncé, Britney Spears, Cassie and New Edition.

At a glance, one might expect his resume to be loftier by this point. But what’s not surprising is the high quality of that first album, including hits “Diamond Girl” and “Addicted”. The math makes even more sense when the all-around talent released his sophomore effort a mere nine months later, supposedly based a summer love fling. That’s summer ’09, just for clarification.

Transition is a concentrated disc, a concept album diagramming the multiple shapes the relationship on record takes. From the start, tone-setting “Never Gonna Break Up” outlines Leslie’s intentions of finding that perfect girl. In a seamless transition, he goes to spotting that fine tenderoni, with the assistance of  The Clipse’s Pusha T, on “Something That I Like” and proceeds to ask her the basic questions leading to a date on the bouncy “Zodiac”. Hook, line, sinker only three songs in.

I ought to mention the album’s entirely produced by Mr. Leslie himself and the veteran trackmaster appropriately keeps the scriptures in lockstep with matching backdrops. Later on in the album, his special blend could not be more obvious with the heart-poundingly catchy “You’re Not My Girl”. The hook here is so infectious it’s actually dangerous beware who you mouth it around. But moreso artistically, it carries the relationship theme. As with most affairs, Leslie hits a rough patch; he dutifully reassesses the situation on “Nothing”.

The album closes with the gut-wrenching assertion “I Choose You”, a brutally honest closing you’d expect for such a touchy subject, yet still so real it makes Transition’s replay value up there with the best of ’09. What’s most impressive about this record is that it’s a complete portrait as an album, yet each individual song could be taken and applied to nearly any relationship, at one time or another. So quite literally whatever you’re in the mood for, Ryan Leslie gives it to you hot on a platter. And consider its release a mere nine months after his debut album? Perhaps the hype was right and the math does add up after all.

By: Alborz Mohtashami

UP – A movie that seemed to revolve around a young boy and his adventures in a floating house. Within the first ten minutes of the movie however, I realized that the plot focused rather on elderly man who inhabited the house, his plight with the recent loss of his wife, and an adventure that would ultimately lead him to let go of his hurt, and move on with his life. This is not only a movie for kids, but also one that we can all enjoy. It is certainly a story that will move you to tears.  

- – Nicole Abi-Najem

Many have heard the name Kafka, it’s an all too familiar name thrown around in Grade 11 English class, yet his name carries no resonance with us today. 

Franz Kafka is the Shakespeare of our time, a famous writer born and raised in Prague. The most recent short story I’ve read by him is regarded as one of his most famous pieces of literature: The Metamorphosis. Gregor Samsa awakes one morning to find himself transformed into a MONSTROUS VERMIN. A cockroach, some speculate, but the opening sentence captures our attention and carries us through the tormenting life of now cockroach Gregor Samsa. 

Kafka has an unduplicated ability to capture the deepest insecurities and fear of modern man. A reader going through this short story may have no concept as to the deeper implications of the plot.  This is beyond a mere physical transformation, for his substantiation into a lower life form, a critter regarded to be most vile to humanity, encapsulates our deepest fear of being rejected and despised by our society. What worse torment can one endure than to be shunned and stared at with repulsion in the eyes of man and even, our family? Sit and read this, it’s a book, which is far too complex and layered to read in one brief sit. I dare you to dedicate time to read and analyze, even relate this story to yourself. Go through the mind of one of the world’s most brilliant writers, feel the pain and torment which one can only understand through ‘The Metamorphosis.’ 

–Nicole Abi-Najem

Genre: Piano Rock

Artist: Keane

Album: Under the Iron Sea

Year: 2006

Forget what the critics say, Keane is not an imitator of Coldplay – not even close. Where debut album “Hopes and Fears” was a purely piano-driven masterpiece, “Under the Iron Sea” continues to display the genius of distortion pedals and keyboards to create an even more progressive electronic sound. Keane shows promise; successful transitioning is one sign that a band is growing with their music and is confident enough to experiment and test new instruments. Tom Chaplin, sounds more sullen in “Under the Iron Sea”, the warble in his voice is beautiful when paired with Tim Rice-Oxley’s synthesized effects in “Is It Any Wonder?” Standout track is “Hamburg Song” which sounds almost anthem-like in the first few bars, describing the tenuous relationship between Chaplin and Rice-Oxley, not knowing how to deal with their sudden rise to fame. It’s easy to love Keane; they’re proof that good music can be made without guitars.

Karen Lam