James Ingram, Grammy-winning R&B singer, dead at 66
James Ingram, the Grammy-winning singer who launched multiple hits on the R&B and pop charts and earned two Oscar nominations for his songwriting, has died, according to a close associate. He was 66.
Debbie Allen, an actress-choreographer and frequent collaborator with Ingram, announced his death on Twitter on Tuesday. Attempts by The Associated Press to confirm his death with Ingram’s family or representatives have been unsuccessful.
Ingram was born February 16, 1952 in Akron, Ohio.
He appeared on Quincy Jones’ 1981 album, “The Dude,” which earned him three Grammy nominations and one win for best R&B male vocal performance for “One Hundred Ways.”
In a statement Tuesday, Jones called Ingram his “baby brother.”
“With that soulful, whisky sounding voice, James Ingram was simply magical … every beautiful note that James sang pierced your essence and comfortably made itself at home,” Jones said. “But it was really no surprise because James was a beautiful human being, with a heart the size of the moon. James Ingram was, and always will be, beyond compare.”
In 1983 Ingram released his debut album, “It’s Your Night,” which included the hit “Yah Mo Be There.” The song, which featured Michael McDonald, became a Top 20 hit on the Billboard pop charts and won the Grammy for best R&B performance by a duo or group with vocal.
James Ingram, the Grammy-winning singer who launched multiple hits on the R&B and pop charts and earned two Oscar nominations for his songwriting, has died, according to a close associate. He was 66.
Debbie Allen, an actress-choreographer and frequent collaborator with Ingram, announced his death on Twitter on Tuesday. Attempts by The Associated Press to confirm his death with Ingram’s family or representatives have been unsuccessful.
Ingram was born February 16, 1952 in Akron, Ohio.
He appeared on Quincy Jones’ 1981 album, “The Dude,” which earned him three Grammy nominations and one win for best R&B male vocal performance for “One Hundred Ways.”
In a statement Tuesday, Jones called Ingram his “baby brother.”
“With that soulful, whisky sounding voice, James Ingram was simply magical … every beautiful note that James sang pierced your essence and comfortably made itself at home,” Jones said. “But it was really no surprise because James was a beautiful human being, with a heart the size of the moon. James Ingram was, and always will be, beyond compare.”
In 1983 Ingram released his debut album, “It’s Your Night,” which included the hit “Yah Mo Be There.” The song, which featured Michael McDonald, became a Top 20 hit on the Billboard pop charts and won the Grammy for best R&B performance by a duo or group with vocal.
James IngramThe Associated Press
James Ingram
Ingram also reached the top of the pop charts twice with the songs “I Don’t Have the Heart” and “Baby, Come to Me,” a duet with Patti Austin. “Somewhere Out There,” Ingram’s collaboration with Linda Ronstadt from the 1986 film “An American Tail,” reached No. 2 on the pop charts.
Ingram was also a talented songwriter: Alongside Jones, he co-wrote Michael Jackson’s “P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing),” earning him a Grammy nomination for best R&B song. Ingram scored Oscar nominations for best original song with “The Day I Fall In Love” from “Beethoven’s 2nd” and “Look What Love Has Done” from “Junior.”
Both tracks also competed for best original song at the Golden Globes.
Elfen’s Neosoul Hip Hop New Music Tuesday January 27th 2019
It just amazes me how I can find good music just surfing on YouTube! I found this hip hop instrumental Banga on a YouTube tutorial on how to wash your LOCS! His name is Lakely Inspired. The song is called Alone. Take a ride press play. Or get ya mind fucked cause this song will surely send your mind to ecstasy………
Don’t Cry: Lil Wayne ft. XXXTentacion
Here’s the video for Lil Wayne’s new song; Don’t Cry, featuring XXXTentacion
Elfen’s What’s Old To You Is New To Me Underground Hip Hop Monday
This weeks What’s Old To You Is New To Me Underground Hip Hop Monday artist of the week is Marlowe.
“An artist afraid to overreach himself is as useless as a general who is afraid to be wrong.”
Over a half-century later, the axiom remains true for hyper-kinetic hip-hop innovators, North Carolina’s L’Orange and Solemn Brigham—the hard-boiled duo behind the fun house fever dream, Marlowe.
Released on Mello Music Group, Marlowe is a triumph of ambition, a rap bricolage blending prohibition and civil rights-era samples with Asian psychedelic rock flourishes. Solemn Brigham controls the microphone like a general who can’t help but be right. His flow is a blitzkrieg. It’s an Olympian sprint, gliding over snares and kick-drums like hurdles. He’s a showman seeking revolution—resolute in his desire to strike equilibrium between awareness and entertainment.
Solemn applies the fictional protagonist’s search for the truth towards different ends. His crimes are existential yet specific, rooted in the injustices of the past and the attempt to redress them in the present. He’s an artist perennially seeking something to fight for, channeling energy from the music of the civic rights era, stealing timeless rhythms and inflection from classic funk and soul. An old soul with original ideas, tapping into the eternal reservoir of Sam Cooke to Ice Cube, Otis Redding to Chuck D, Curtis Mayfield to KRS-One.
Over the course of 17 tracks, Solemn hurls sharp darts at counterfeits trying to crack his religion, the onslaught of time, and prevaricating rappers—all while paying homage to those who paved the road for him. He bounces off the beats like a trampoline placed in a speakeasy, doubling up on the vocals, burrowing into dense cryptic tangles of slang and then stretching them out with melodic ease.
With dazzling cinematic mise en scene, L’Orange crafts a world that sounds like an old-time medicine show dropped into 90s Brooklyn, with Solemn summoning the holy spirit of Big L. Cymbals crash, drums pound, fuzzy guitars ride out, a bronze rain of horns cascade. This is gorgeous celestial dust, high-powered fuel with every syllable meticulously ordained. Marlowe cracked the case, but how they did it can only become clear under deeper investigation.
Solemn got some killa rhymes. Just click play and you can decide if this album Is garbage or a head banga!!
Marlowe Bio ———> https://www.mellomusicgroup.com/products/marlowe-lorange-solemn-brigham-marlowe-lp
Tekashi 6ix9ine Allegedly Denied Bail Again, New Court Date Set For February
Article via HotNewHipHop
Billy Ado has the scoop.
Tekashi 6ix9ine is still sitting behind bars at this moment, waiting for a judge to grant him bail. That day did not come on Tuesday. Billy Ado, a heralded member of Tekashi’s crew that has had his ups and downs with the rainbow-haired rapper himself, took to social media to keep the masses informed. Ado left the Federal Courthouse after attending a hearing involving Tekashi and company, and immediately began filming from the steps. While in selfie mode, Ado exclaims, “Treyway, I’m out here. I’m just leaving the courthouse for 6ix9ine.” As he walks down the courthouse steps, he dives further into the details of the short hearing.
“Everybody was there,” Ado explained. He continued on to name Shotti and others that were arrested along with Tekashi. “Nobody got bail, they got a new court date for February the 20th. We ‘gon see what’s good then.” If Ado’s words are true, that means Tekashi will have to sit for another month in jail before getting to see a judge. His continued attempts to get bail will either wear down the judge or embolden the prosecutors. “I heard some crazy shit today man,” Ado said of the hearing. “It’s still fuckin’ Treyway,” he asserts while still walking down the street.
Cardi B claps back at conservative columnist: ‘If I twerk… does that mean I deserve to get raped’
Article via Yahoo
Don’t come for Cardi B this week.
After firing back at Tomi Lahren, the “Money” rapper aimed her social media ire at Daily Caller video columnist Stephanie Hamill on Tuesday. The conservative reporter singled out Cardi — who has been making headlines for her anti-Trump views recently — claiming her sexualized music videos, like the one for “Twerk,” don’t empower women. Hamill invited “leftists” and the musician to chime in.
Well, Cardi B did just that. The Grammy-nominated artist replied, tweeting she can “wear and not wear” whatever she wants. She added, “So Stephanie chime in…If I twerk and be half naked does that mean I deserve to get raped and molested ?”
Hamill tweeted back agreeing that, “No means NO, NO MATTER what!” However, she claimed “this video” and others like it “sexually objectify women.” She added, “I think this hurts all women & the cause. We’re not sex OBJECTS!”
We’re guessing the invite to appear on Hamill’s show is most likely going to be a hard pass from the star. Although Cardi B didn’t engage with the reporter again, she had one more thing to say.
“All these conservatives been harassing me and telling me the most disgusting things these past few days,” she tweeted. “Listen I’m not telling ya to turn liberal all I’m saying is to admit that your president is f***in up this country right now! Liberal or conservative we ALL suffer as citizens.”
Kelly Rowland Confirms New 2019 Album & Speaks On Solange’s “Genius”
She’s ready.
Kelly Rowland has confirmed her plans to roll out a new album in 2019. “This year! I said that last year. But I actually, really mean it this year,” she joked. It has been 5 years since the release of her last LP and her fans are clamoring for a new project, especially after her last single “Kelly” dropped in November. The creative process has been quite intense for the singer.
“This is by far the longest, most pressure-filled process ever, only because I know what it’s supposed to be and I have been so hard on myself. I know it. And it’s the first time I’ve said it out loud. I’ve been extremely hard on myself. But it’s definitely coming, and I’m more so excited about this project than anything else,” Rowland revealed during an interview with Billboard.
She focused on the youngest of the artistic family, saying that she would love to collaborate with the talented Solange again.
“I’m a huge fan,” she said. “I love her writing and how detailed and particular she is. I always wanted to figure out how the heck she has so many different layers of harmonies when she is constructing these vocals, and it’s so complex but simple. It’s genius,” she gushed. “It’s the genius in her genius mind that she has in there.”
The pair previously worked together on Rowland’s “Simply Deep” as well as other tracks on the record of the same name. Rowland would later make vocal appearances on Solange’s critically-acclaimed A Seat at the Table.
Article via HotNewHipHop
Transgender Pioneer Jackie Shane Reflects on Her Re-Emergence & Grammy-Nominated Album
Article via Billboard
For decades, Jackie Shane was a musical mystery: a riveting black transgender soul singer who packed nightclubs in Toronto in the 1960s, but then disappeared after 1971.
Some speculated she had died, but her legacy lived on among music historians and R&B collectors who paid big money for her vinyl records. But in 2010, the Canadian Broadcasting Company produced an audio documentary about her, awakening a wider interest in the pioneering singer. Today her face is painted on a massive 20-story musical mural in Toronto with other influential musicians like Muddy Waters.
In 2014, Douglas Mcgowan, an A&R scout for archival record label Numero Group, finally reached her via phone in Nashville, Tennessee, where she was born in 1940. After much effort, Mcgowan got her agree to work with them on a remarkable two-CD set of her live and studio recordings that was released in 2017 called Any Other Way, which has been nominated for best historical album at this year’s Grammy Awards.
Shane, now 78, has lived a very private life since she stopped performing. In fact, no one involved in album has yet to meet her in person as she only agrees to talk on the phone. But she realized after the CBC documentary that she could no longer hide. News outlets began calling and her photos started appearing in newspapers and magazines after the release of the album. RuPaul and Laverne Cox have tweeted stories about Shane.
“I had been discovered,” Shane told The Associated Press in a recent phone interview. “It wasn’t what I wanted, but I felt good about it. After such a long time, people still cared. And now those people who are just discovering me, it’s just overwhelming.”
“I started dressing [as a female] when I was 5,” Shane said. “And they wondered how I could keep the high heels on with my feet so much smaller than the shoe. I would press forward and would, just like Mae West, throw myself from side to side. What I am simply saying is I could be no one else.”
By the time she was 13, she considered herself a woman in a man’s body and her mother unconditionally supported her.
“Even in school, I never had any problems,” Shane said. “People have accepted me.”
She played drums and became a regular session player for Nashville R&B and gospel record labels and went out on tour with artists like Jackie Wilson. She’s known Little Richard since she was a teenager and later in the ’60s met Jimi Hendrix, who spent time gigging on Nashville’s Jefferson Street.
To this day, Shane playfully scoffs at Little Richard’s antics and knows more than a few wild stories about him. “I grew up with Little Richard. Richard is crazy, don’t even go there,” Shane said with a laugh.
But soon the South’s Jim Crow laws became too harsh for her to live with.
“I can come into your home. I can clean your house. I can raise your children. Cook your food. Take care of you,” Shane said. “But I can’t sit beside you in a public place? Something is wrong here.”
One day in Nashville she had been playing with acclaimed soul singer Joe Tex when he encouraged her to leave the South and pursue her musical career elsewhere.
Grammy-winning music journalist Rob Bowman spent dozens of hours on the phone with Shane interviewing her for the liner notes in the album. Her story, Bowman says, is so remarkable that even Hollywood couldn’t dream it up.
Born in the Jim Crow era and raised during the heyday of Nashville’s small but influential R&B scene, Shane was confident in herself and musically inclined since she was a child. She learned how to sing in Southern churches and gospel groups, but she learned about right and wrong from watching a con artist posing as a minister selling healing waters to the faithful.
From an early age, she knew who she was and never tried to hide it.
She began playing gigs in Boston, Montreal and eventually Toronto, which despite being a majority white city at the time still had a budding R&B musical scene, according to Bowman. She performed with Frank Motley, who was known for playing two trumpets at once.
“Jackie was a revelation,” Bowman said. “Quite quickly the black audience in Toronto embraced her. Within a couple of years, Jackie’s audiences were 50-50 white and black.”
Bowman said that in the early ’60s, the term transgender wasn’t widely known at all and being anything but straight was often feared by people. Most audiences perceived Shane as a gay male, Bowman said. In the pictures included in the album’s liner notes, her onstage outfits were often very feminine pantsuits and her face is adorned with cat eyes and dramatic eyebrows.
For Shane, her look onstage was as important as the music.
“I would travel with about 20 trunks,” Shane said. “Show business is glamour. When you walk out there, people should say, ‘Whoa! I like that!’ When I walk out onstage, I’m the show.”
She put out singles and a live album, covering songs like “Money (That’s What I Want),” ″You Are My Sunshine,” and “Any Other Way,” which was regionally popular in Boston and Toronto in 1963. Her live songs are populated with extended monologues in which Shane takes on the role of a preacher, sermonizing on her life, sexual politics and much more.
“I humble myself before my audience,” Shane explained. “I am going to sing to you and talk to you and do all the things I can so when you leave here, you’ll be back here again.”
She was beloved in Toronto and still considers it her home.
“You cannot choose where you are born, but you can choose where you call home,” Shane said. “And Toronto is my home.”
But her connection to her mother was so strong that ultimately it led Shane to leave show business in 1971. Her mother’s husband died and Shane didn’t want to leave her mother living alone. But she also felt a bit exhausted by the pace.
“I needed to step back from it,” Shane said. “Every night, two or three shows and concerts. I just felt I needed a break from it.”
Since the release of Any Other Way, Shane often gets the question about whether she would ever perform again now that so many more people are discovering her music.
“I don’t know,” Shane said. “Because it takes a lot out of you. I give all I can. You are really worn out when you walk off that stage.”
She wavered on an answer, saying she’s thinking about it. Her record’s nomination in the best historical album category only go to producers and engineers, not the artists, so Shane is not nominated herself. But Mcgowan, who is nominated as a producer, said he has invited her to come with him to the ceremony in Los Angeles on Feb. 10 as his guest.
“It’s like my grandmamma would say, ‘Good things come to those who wait,’” Shane said. “All of the sudden it’s like people are saying, ‘Thank you, Jackie, for being out there and speaking when no one else did.’ No matter whether I initiated it or not, and I did not, this was the way that fate wanted it to be.”