Besides Jay-Z's much-anticipated first performances at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., Sept. 28-30, the fall has even more black music in store.
Ebony's Darren Sands has pulled together a list of concerts, albums and one item that doesn't quite fit into a conventional category (President Barack Obama's re-election soundtrack) for your musical planning purposes. Check out a few of the items here:
Cruel Summer, G.O.O.D. Music Compilation
Sept. 18Kanye West. Pusha T. John Legend. Estelle. Big Sean. Common. Q-Tip. Kid Cudi. 2 Chainz. Teyana Taylor?
There's not a lot to say about what is probably the most anticipated album of the year that hasn't already been said. Slated to be released on September 18, the record's title is something of a misnomer (okay, that's been said), but nevermind that. Is the most meticulous curator of all things artistic at the helm of another masterpiece or a murky project for his lofty ambitions? Can 2 Chainz, proud to be incessant in his unwitting, and coexist with Common's ever-cerebral and always critical flow?
Brandy, Two Eleven (RCA)
Oct. 16
I looked around the room at the folks with whom I watched the BET Awards this past year, and while the real tears were yet to come, a few were tearing up during Brandy's electric stage performance. Whitney, as it were, was gone and the real tears wouldn't begin to stream until her mother Cissy's performance of "Bridge Over Troubled Water". It was Brandy's poise and syrupy tone on "I'm Your Baby Tonight" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" that seemed to capture the moment that the: "Where has this girl been?" and "Why was her last great record Never Say Never?" Up next for the star who it seemed couldn't miss in the nineties, is her first studio album on RCA Records, titled Two Eleven. Brandy reportedly worked with Drake, Frank Ocean, Sean Garrett and Timbaland. Her cut, "Wildest Dreams", the Sean Garrett collaboration, is a sure-fire hit. It's the helplessly sweet, vulnerable Brandy that recalls an era, not long ago, when it seemed she just wanted to be down.
Kendrick Lamar, Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City
Oct. 2
It's hard to say where hip-hop's core rests right now; if it rests somewhere left of the flashy, crew-driven records with monster production chock-full of lyrical bombast, and right of the infectious but often bewildering affect of say, Odd Future, purists and popsters alike can likely agree on Kendrick Lamar as the genre's darling …
Read more at Ebony.com.
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