You may have noticed I don’t normally play cheerleader for Okayartists in this space. The insiders behind the Okayupdates that precede this blog are just that good at what they do that I usually feel like anything I might possibly add would be redundant. But before I let myself do anything else today I have to make an Okayartist-related declaration.
If you’ve ever rhetorically asked why they don’t make music “like they used to”… If you’ve ever complained about how contemporary Soul artists don’t write songs that actually feed the soul anymore… If you miss the days when musicians spoke unapologetically about things like race, religion, politics, drugs, crime, the economy, and yes, love… If you’ve ever felt like Hip-Hop was infinitely more powerful than anybody, including the artists making it, give it credit for… If you are absolutely in love with music… You need to go buy Erykah Badu’s long-awaited fourth LP New Amerykah Part One (4th World War) today!
I’ve been following the Badu-news since she announced her intent to release three new albums in rapid succession last year. My expectations were raised by such an ambitious proclamation from an artist known for her progressive individuality. But my mind is bent by how good this record is. The way she invokes the divine in the name of the sacred musical science called Hip-Hop on “The Healer” and crafts a stew of socio-political commentary, occult spirituality & fantasy imagery on “Twinkle” attest to her coming-of-age as an artist finally reveling in the mystical gifts of creation.
With a sharp eye for socially relevant subject-matter, a musically diverse ear, and a shamanic spirituality, New Amerykah Part One strikes me as a uniquely modern antecedent of old-school gems like 24 Carat Black’s conscious-Soul suite Ghetto: Misfortune’s Wealth. It’s an early contender in the “album of the year” race. And it’s the agreed-upon pick for “album of the week” between myself and crochet-artist m. Cody here in our adjoining workspaces.
Which, not at all coincidentally, leads me to our regularly scheduled Blogarhythm about the last album to earn workspace-wide consensus, Pyramides, by UK-based one-man-band Trouble Over Tokyo. A D.I.Y. virtuoso born Christopher M. Taylor, the artist otherwise known as “Toph” arrived on the scene via a self-released limited-edition disc called 1000. And although Pyramides is billed as his first “professional” CD it’s being released on his own Tokytron Records as well.
TOT’s style, which nods to Hall & Oates, Rush, Styx, the Eurythmics, Thom Yorke, Justin Timberlake and maybe even Cedric Bixler-Zavala all at once, is markedly different from Badu’s. But his emotionally revelatory songwriting resonanted with my workmate and I all the same. “The Liar” in particular, with it’s dramatic strings, stuttery drum programming, cheesy keyboards, gritty synth-bass & fluttery falsetto vocal, made me turn up the volume & pay attention, and my homegirl inquire “who is that?”
Trouble Over Tokyo “The Liar”
Despite his poppy musical leanings, TOT’s melodramatic vocal style put me in mind of the type of late-’70s and early-’80s Rock artists you might expect to hear singing about warlocks and witches. For some reason it’s Badu who wound up doing so instead. I’m not shocked though, just satisfied that some musicians still know how to keep fans like me on our toes.
- El Keter