Crib Notes

Like Michael Jackson when he was alive, R. Kelly is simultaneously worshipped and reviled. Few inspire such widespread curiosity about their private lives, and the intrigue surrounding the pied piper of R&B (great nickname) certainly hasn’t died down since his acquittal on child pornography charges last June.

He recently admitted he was functionally illiterate, and a press tour of his palatial Chicagoland home this summer put his Neverland-like environs on full display. New York radio personality Miss Info reported that the outside of his house looks like a suburban church, the inside looks like a luxury ski lodge, and that he served a punch called “Sex in the Kitchen.” Like his choice of cocktails, his recent music similarly has not shied away from explicitly sexual material.

Continue Reading “R. Kelly recruits Atlantans for new album, Untitled“

(Photo courtesy Parrish Lewis)

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'HEY MAN, SMELL MY LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD': George Clinton (right) with BMI CEO Del Bryant

Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) functions much like its competitor ASCAP, collecting royalties on behalf of songwriters and publishers from radio and other outlets. But unlike ASCAP, which is owned by its songwriters and publishers, BMI is owned by broadcasters, the same people they license for royalties.

Shady, right? Still, it’s been ahead of the curve when it comes to representing black musicians, and today its artists include the majority of top-selling hip hop artists. The weirdness of these dynamics were on full display at BMI’s Urban Awards show September 10 in New York. Held at Lincoln Center’s jazz hall, the evening’s co-host was BMI CEO Del Bryant, whose tightly-buttoned suit, weird tan and strained attempts at street banter routinely caused a huge room of cocktailed-up rappers, producers and music industry types (one of whom was rocking a Gumby haircut) to fall into awkward silences.

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Funkadelic Parliamentarian George Clinton doesn’t have any substantial Atlanta ties that I know of, but he’s been enormously influential on local artists. At least according to Dallas Austin, whom I talked to recently about his new 8Dazeaweakend project. (Its DVD, which features Clinton, just became available on iTunes, by the way.)

“He’s been instrumental to all of our careers in Atlanta, me and Outkast and everybody,” Austin says, going on to describe his exhilaration at seeing Parliament’s spaceship stage show when he was younger.

Next Thursday Austin and other Atlanta musicians will have a chance to return the favor, as they are scheduled to appear at BMI’s Urban Music Awards show in New York City, during which Clinton will be presented with an “Icon” award.

Atl types scheduled to attend the event at Lincoln Center’s Frederick P. Rose Hall also include Keri Hilson, Soulja Boy, Polow da Don, Cee-Lo, Bobby Valentino and Big Boi. Others promised are DJ Khaled, Plies, Rick Ross and Ray J.

In fact, pretty much everybody will be there except you. There are no tickets available to the public. But your trusty correspondent has submitted a press request, so hopefully I will be able to apprise you of the goings on.

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There was much speculation about who would emerge victorious in last week’s sale’s battle between pathological fibber/former correctional officer Rick Ross and Atlanta transplant/suburban zeitgeist-capturer Asher Roth. The normally Manhattan-obsessed Gawker even weighed in on Roth, with Pitchfork’s Tom Breihan going so far as to predict Ross would move 300,000 units in his first week out and to speculate that if a second single “manages to stick, he’ll go platinum, easy.”

It doesn’t look like that’s gonna happen. The results are in, and Roth’s Asleep in the Bread Aisle has debuted at number five on the Billboard 200, moving 67,449 copies. (Some have the figure closer to 62,000. Can anyone explain the differential to me?)

Ross moved about 158,000 units and hit the top spot, making Deeper Than Rap his third number one album. Not bad, but indicative of the weak sales climate and, for the record, nowhere near as many copies as his rival 50 Cent tends to sell, even on a bad outing.

Among other Atlanta artists, Keri Hilson’s In A Perfect World… continues to defy industry expectations, moving 23K this week to put it over 200,000 all told. Looks like the album’s long delay didn’t kill it after all, although who knows how high she could have flown if the thing had dropped last year. As it stands, Hip Hop DX notes its “considerable radio and video play” and calls her “Interscope’s present R&B flagship artist.”

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The first two quarters don’t normally mark the release of many exciting hip-hop and R&B releases, but this year’s schedule is chock-full of new albums from big-name and buzzed-about Atlanta artists.

Somehow, Keri Hilson’s In A Perfect World… saw release last Tuesday. I’ll admit that I never actually expected the thing to drop, as I speculated. It was joined that week by another album few thought would see the light of day any time soon, MF Doom’s Born Like This, about which I had mostly positive things to say. [EDITOR'S NOTE: Read this week's CL feature, "What the MF, DOOM?"]

Notable upcoming local releases include Bow Wow’s latest, New Jack City, Pt II, which drops next week. After the flop of his 2007 collaboration with Omarion, Face Off, he really needs a hit or he’ll probably fall off the map. His ex-GF Ciara, on the other hand, probably has a little bit more wiggle room; her much-delayed third album Fantasy Ride is now scheduled to come out May 5. Shawty Lo’s second solo CD Carlos is also slated for the same day; let me know if you come across anyone who’s excited for that.

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Fresh off her appearance on Timbaland’s massive hit “The Way I Are,” Keri Hilson’s debut album was originally slotted for a mid-2008 release. But three videos, massive publicity and multiple delays later, the album still shows no signs of coming out.

Though release-date bumps are common — especially in today’s increasingly hostile sales environment — Hilson’s story is a noteworthy one. Many believed she was poised to be Atlanta’s next R&B superstar. She still could be, but further delays of her CD, In a Perfect World…, could irrevocably damage her career.

“They should have put her album out last year,” says Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, executive editor of influential music magazine the Fader. “It just keeps getting pushed back and pushed back. It’s possible she’ll just get lost.”

Hilson herself grows defensive when asked if she’s concerned about her album’s status.

“Absolutely not, absolutely not,” she said in a late January phone interview. “I’m not worried. Timbaland is completely not worried. Polow’s not worried. It’s not a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing.”

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The music industry is going ape shit over Keri Hilson, the young songwriter who absolutely set off Timbaland’s electro-urban “The Way I Are” hit. This month, she’s featured on the cover of the Fader. (She’s the woman on the left; the lady on the right is the equally awesome Brooklyn artist Santogold.) And although no one has heard her upcoming album, In a Perfect World, many expect it to be as fabulous as “The Way I Are.”

The 25-year-old Hilson got her start as a member of Atlanta songwriting crew the Clutch (more on the Clutch very soon). Here’s what MTV.com wrote about her in a news story July 2, 2007:

While on deck for her solo turn, Hilson has been writing prolifically. Either on her own or as part of the five-person songwriting/production team the Clutch, Hilson has penned tunes for Britney Spears, the Pussycat Dolls, Diddy, Ciara, Usher, Chris Brown, Mary J. Blige, Ruben Studdard, Ludacris (”Runaway Love”) and Omarion (”Ice Box”).

“The Clutch is a new thing, it’s still a baby,” she said. “We are responsible for some major hits: ‘Ice Box,’ ‘Take Me as I Am,’ ‘The Way I Are,’ so many. ‘Anonymous’ by Bobby Valentino, a whole bunch of new artists. Beyoncé … the Clutch is everywhere. Co-writing makes it a lot faster, and you’re more open to other ideas. It opens you up creatively. Everyone brings more color to a certain situation, to a certain song, [which] makes it a lot easier. Sometimes we take it section by section or line by line — it’s fun either way. Work is play for us.”

Meanwhile, the Fader story calls Hilson part of Timbaland’s “Black Pop 2.0″ movement — with 1.0 being the Missy Elliott/Aaliyah/Ginuwine explosion of the late ’90s.

Hilson is a black princess from the upwardly mobile mindstate of Atlanta, and her dad is a real estate mogul who happens to own the subdivision where Akon lives. By her own description, a straight R&B chick more likely to be listening to Groove Theory or Babyface than anything current, her soul nevertheless has a futurist musical and emotional timbre; that computer love thing that connects her with Danja and makes her sound like a logical progression of Timbaland’s urban new wave.

You can download a free PDF copy of the Fader at TheFader.com.

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