The May 2012 issue of Black Grooves has now been posted at www.blackgrooves.org<http://www.blackgrooves.org>.
This month we're featuring the Carolina Chocolate Drops' new CD Leaving Eden and Esperanza Spalding's fourth studio album Radio Music Society. New Chicago blues releases include Spider Eating Preacher by West Side electric guitarist Eddie C. Campbell, and Son of the Seventh Son by Mud Morganfield, the oldest son of Muddy Waters.
We're also highlighting a wide range of world music: the film and soundtrack Oka! with music created and performed by the Bayaka of the Central African Republic; the Dust-to-Digital compilation I Have My Liberty: Gospel Sounds from Accra, Ghana; the 2-CD compilation Sparromania!: Wit, Wisdom, and Soul from the King of Calypso, 1962-1974; the sophomore release Sol Filosofia from the Nairobi-based soul-pop group Sauti Sol; Karimba<http://blackgrooves.org/?p=8042> from the Afro-Peruvian collective Novalima; and Nigerian/German neo-soul singer Nketa's second U.S. release Soul is Heavy, featuring Talib Kweli, Black Thought and the London-based R&B singer Ms. Dynamite.
In the hip hop category there are reviews of the recent book From Jim Crow to Jay-Z: Race, Rap and the Performance of Masculinity by Miles White; the new mixtape 51 from Kool A.D. (of Das Racist); and Black and Brown!, the collaboration between Detroit's Black Milk and Danny Brown.
Other CDs reviewed this month include What Were You Hoping For and Live at the Troubadour 2011 by rock/neo-soul artist Van Hunt; TV on the Radio's feature-length music video Nine Types of Light, a companion to their 2011 album; What's Up? It's Me, the first R&B album by Indiana University Jacobs School of Music alum Rod Clemmons; One World Sovereignty, the debut from D.C. reggae band Nappy Riddem; and the compilations Hidden Gems by the late Luther Vandross and Once in a Lifetime by gospel artist Smokie Norful.
Brenda Nelson-Strauss
Editor, Black Grooves
Archives of African American Music & Culture
Indiana University
2805 E. 10th Street, Suite 180
Bloomington, IN 47408
www.blackgrooves.org
http://www.indiana.edu/~aaamc/
[log in to unmask]
|