I understand Spin’s frustration, I also give celebrity DJs the side eye. How does one wake up and say “Today I’m going to be a DJ because I have the money to buy equipment and I have a lot of music.” Huh? To me that’s disrespectful to the craft of being a disc jockey. It’s true that they aren’t taking any money out of my pocket because I haven’t djayed a bar/lounge in years, but for those big name DJs this creates a huge problem. Clubs would increase their patronage with a big name DJ but are you paying to party or look at Kanye all night. I can only imagine how much it would cost to listen to Lil Wayne spin, but if he’s garbage, what did you really get?

I recently went to the Brooklyn Bowl to hear Talib Kweli spin. Questlove was originally supposed to spin and after the last time I heard him, I knew I needed more. He cancelled and Kweli took his place. He had absolutely no technique. The music choices were all over the place and his transition made grimace. Still, because I love music so much, I tried to enjoy myself.

In my opinion, unless celebrities are willing to take the craft seriously, they should leave the djaying to the professionals. In some cases like Idris Elba or Mike and Pauly from Jersey Shore, they really practice and study. From what I hear about Kanye West’s first gig, he played a nice eclectic mix of music but I hope he understands that it takes more to DJ than a Serato box, a laptop and a playlist.

These were MADE for DJ Diva..they just don’t know it yet  ;)

Miss Aretha Franklin is getting married for the third time at 69. It seems the songstress is in love enough to tie the knot again. To some it may appear to be useless, but from what I’ve learned from my own grandmother, a woman never ceases to want that promise of an everlasting bond with a partner.

4 years ago, when my grandmother was 75, she shocked all of her direct descendants (including me) when she announced that she was going to marry her long time male friend. On New Year’s Eve 2007, everyone who could, made the pilgrimage to Memphis, TN to see our matriarch get married at the family church. The same cousin who married me, said the blessed words over the couple and there wasn’t dry eye amongst the family as they said “I Do”. For the first kiss, my grandfather grabbed my grandmother so fast, he startled her. I couldn’t blame him, after all, she had made him wait 30 years before she said yes. They are the happiest couple you ever did see and according to Grandma, “The pig in the blanket still works!”

Grandma talks about other vibrant 60-80 year olds in her church who still want to get married and enjoy relations with a man. The problem seems to be that the men in their age group tend to gravitate toward women under 60, leaving the women without prospects. I feel bad for them but as I approach 40, I see the same trend. A close DJ friend of mine, who has been a confirmed bachelor forever, recently got married at 50 to a woman in her 30s and they are expecting a baby any day now. I can’t help to think about the women in his age group who would have loved to have been married to him.

Like my grandmother, I tend to enjoy the attention of younger men.  Although I’m single, I’m think by the time I’m ready to settle down again, I won’t have much of a problem. And maybe like Miss Aretha and my grandmother, the third time will be a charm for me too.

I survived @GreenhouseNYC.
— Questo of The Roots (@questlove) December 15, 2011

Wednesday night (12/14/11), I got into one of the most exclusive clubs in New York with my girl Suezette. Greenhouse NYC is notorious for it’s strict door policy and choosey bouncers.  When Teri Woods had a book release party for her book Alibi back in 2009, the club owner refused to let in black people. When I originally saw the invitation pop up across my Twitter timeline from DJ Spinna, I immediately clicked it. DJ Neil Armstrong was having a party to celebrate 10 Year anniversary of  his mixtape “Original”, presented by Adidas.  Questlove was going to be spinning, along with DJ Neil Armstrong himself, plus DJ Spinna and G-bothe Pro, all of whom I follow on Twitter. It sounded great but I also knew it would be probably impossible to get into. My girl SueZette invited me to go to Peter Hadar on the same night. She said the event was free and since I needed to get out of the house it seemed like the perfect opportunity. I met her at the Wip Gallery and there were apparently problems at the door. They were letting in the white people but not the blacks. The bouncer had no guestlist for Peter and when his manager appeared at the  door, they treated her like dirt. I was in shock and was ready to call it a night, when this woman walked over to another female on the line and began talking about the party around the corner. It was the Greenhouse party and the line was around the corner.

Dj Neil Armstrong Celebrates 10 Years of “Original” Mixtape! from Billet Video Studios on Vimeo.

But back to D’Angelo. It seems my virtual psychic plea worked. D’Angelo has finished up his long awaited album,”James River” and now he’s announced a 2012 tour. Don’t get happy unless you have some Euros because he won’t be playing here in the States. D’Angelo will play at Le Zénith on January 29th in Paris, the Paradiso in Amsterdam on January 31rst and the 02 Academy Brixton in London on February 3rd.

I am not surprised that he stepping back on stage overseas. Europeans are generally happy to see an American Singer. (Well maybe not with Rhianna, they recently booed her off the stage in England.) I can just imagine what would have happened if he had missed a note, or if his voice was not the same. He would have been slayed in the media and would again become a recluse from the music world.

I just hope that I get to see him once again on stage. It doesn’t matter if he no longer looks or sounds like this:

For me it’s like that old boyfriend that you don’t expect to want to get back with, but you remember the good times you had when you were together and you would get back with him if the circumstances were different. Ya know? Kinda like this:
Welcome back D’Angelo, I hope.

D’Angelo apparently contacted TheUrbanDaily and wanted to have a phone interview with them. Now why he chose TheUrbanDaily? I have no clue…actually I had never even heard of this site before I saw this article. I really hope this isn’t a hoax cooked up by the site because I really been feenin for some new D’Angelo.

Unfortunately, D’Angelo doesn’t talk about his new music coming up in the interview, nor does he discuss his recent run-in with trying to pay for some snatch from an undercover police officer in NY a few months. Instead D’Angelo gives some insight into what bands he’s recently been inspired by and that can somewhat give us an idea of what to expect.

I know I know…you want more…but this is all I got! Interview below:

TheUrbanDaily: How are you?

D’Angelo: I’m good, man. I’m good.

TUD: What’s inspiring you lately?

D: I just got turned on to this group called Black Merda that I’m just kinda beating myself up over because I’d never heard of them before. I think about a couple of months ago, my boy turned me on to them. I’m just revisiting groups that are basically looked at like funk groups or funk artists, but I’m looking at it differently now. These guys who were really trying to push the envelope back then, I think they were just a head of their time as far as black rock is concerned.

TUD: Oh, so Black Merda’s from back in the day?

D: Yeah! Black Merda’s from 1969 or 1970 and they were on Chess Records. I’m also listening to s**t like Rick James, The Bar-Kays… These guys were like black rock & roll.

TUD: In listening to stuff like Black Merda and thinking about the multi-dimensionality missing from today’s Black music, is this influencing the stuff that you’re doing now?

D: Uhh, yeah. Definitely. I think it’s just the whole over-influx of what is stereotypically seen as Black music today, or hip-hop today, or Black culture or what have you. Just looking for alternative s**t that’s unquestionably, unmistakably Black, and doesn’t fit into this whole — what I feel is like minstrelsy almost.

TUD: Does it feel to you that in the past 10 years that Black difference has become almost impossible? What used to be a rainbow of offerings 20 years ago seems to be different flavors of the same s**t.

D: I don’t think so. I think it’s out there, but there’s a lot of folks, people in power, record executives or what have you, that are less willing to take chances on s**t that might be different. But I think there’s a underground bubbling up under. A lot of Black folks are trying to do different s**t or they wanna do different s**t. I don’t know the condition of what’s going on in the business right now, but they’re having a hard time cracking through. (Afro-Punk co-founder) Matthew Morgan turned me on to what he was doing probably a couple of years ago. I think it’s the s**t. I love it. One night we were at Raphael Saadiq’s studio and Bootsy Collins came through. I was trying to get in touch with Angelo from Fishbone, but he gave me the DVD of the AfroPunk film. But I’d been branching out and picking up on Bad Brains and s**t like that.

TUD: Do you ever envision yourself coming a little closer to that collective, either performing at the festival or collaborating with those artists?

D: Yes. Definitely.

TUD: Not this year, but maybe next year.

D: Yeah. I’m really just focusing on getting this album together.

TUD: We’ve touched on inspirations from the past, but are there any new artists who are inspiring you right now?

D: Yeah, but it’s funny. I don’t really want to get into that. I’m just kind of focusing on my s**t right now.

TUD: So in the midst of the creative process, you have to keep things very close and keep yourself sheltered from all the back and forth, from all the speculation and I completely understand that. But what is it that you want folks to know about you, about your music.

D: I just want them to know that I’m coming. That’s all. I’m in the kitchen and I’m cooking up something real nice.

411 is the nation’s largest and, one of the most reliable sources to find people, places and things. This information exchange is evident in 1 U Run 2, the second music video from Confessional, the sophomore album from Soul
sensation Russell Taylor (Rt!). The 1 U Run 2 video is a distillation of Russell’s debonair demands to ‘move mountains,’ ‘revive trust’ and be a ‘cool breeze’ in his love one’s life. Opposite the Press Pause video, 1 U Run 2, directed by Kai Morrison is a sensual serenade, scene shopped in part in an arid land which features Grammy Award Nominee and Billboard/BET On Jazz Award Winner Lalah Hathaway.

1 U Run 2 is an essay of symbolism ranging from a desert place where life is difficult to a horseman’s free movement across the terrain and a propitious place for divine revelation to the journey home to Unit 411. As the video forges forward, Russell doesn’t forget to appreciate the progressive ride and, monitors the rear view check points along the way

Click here for the full story

This week on Twitter, Fabulous said that the Drake album “Thank Me Later” was the Hottest R&B album out right now. I tend to agree with him. Full of moody beats and striking lyrics sung in a truly melodic fashion, this R&B DJ immediately fell in love when he began to sing Find Your Love. What was more exciting was when I found out the subject of his song “Fireworks” was no other than Rhianna!

This Sunday in the New York Times, Drake is going to talk about his fling last year with Rhianna:

“I was a pawn,” Drake told the newspaper about his time with Rihanna, which began with an invite to pen a track for the singer. “You know what she was doing to me? She was doing exactly what I’ve done to so many women throughout my life, which is show them quality time, then disappear. I was like, ‘Wow, this feels terrible.’ “

Drake channeled the experience into song, penning a verse on “Fireworks” dedicated to Rihanna, though he never mentions her by name. “I could tell it wasn’t love/ I just thought you’d f—ed with me/ Who could have predicted/ Lucky Strike would have you stuck with me,” Drake raps on the song, referring to the Manhattan bowling alley where the two reportedly made out. “Damn, I kept my wits about me, luckily/ What happened between us that night, it always seems to trouble me/ Now all of a sudden, these gossip rags want to cover me/ And you making it seem like it happened that way because of me.”
source

Now I knew he was lying last year when the New York Post ran that column claiming it caught the lovebirds at the bowling alley. Drake was running all over town saying:

“It’s not like that at all,” Drake told show hosts Cipha Sounds and Peter Rosenberg. “I’m being honest. [She's] just a friend, that’s all. A great artist. I have the most respect for her. I think she’s so talented.”

Man if you tapped that you tapped it. Now you salty…I’m confused…but what’s done in the dark, always comes to light. Even if it’s a year later.