By: Brian Anton

New York musician and songstress Puck, has released her debut single “Dreams“. Being the longtime keyboardist for SZA, gave her the courage she needed, to embark on an independent solo career. As Fleetwood Mac is one of her musical influences, it was a no brainer for her to release her debut material, paying homage to him. This cover record showcases Puck’s raw talent, all the while showing how much of a student of music she is.

You will hear the songbird harmonizing about having “crystal vision” as her flawless vocals glides over the poppy, ethereal beat. The most impressive thing about this release is Puck’s unique tone of voice. It almost has a daunting effect, intriguing the ear to want more. With “Dreams” she took a classic song, and made it her own. Her knowledge, creativity and artistic ability, truly thrives like never before.

Any true fan of good music will become an instant fan of this release. Puck’s Seattle upbringing, and Brooklyn swag set the tone for her original sound. She is scheduled to perform her debut single at elsewherespace in Brooklyn, next week. In the meantime, check it out below.

Related Article:

https://respect-mag.com/2019/05/sza-the-weeknd-travis-scott-game-of-thrones/

The post New York Musician Puck Releases Debut Single “Dreams” appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

As previously reported, Nicki Minaj dropped her highly anticipated album Queen and decided to spill some tea with the release. After previewing the song “Barbie Dreams” on her latest venture with Apple Music, Queen Radio, fans couldn’t wait to rewind and assess the victims of the verbal dragging on the Lil’ Kim inspired track.

“Reading the reactions to Barbie Dreams is fucking hilarious,” Nicki said as soon as the song was released. “Everyone is saying how disrespectful ‘Barbie Dreams’ is, and that’s why I fucking love it.”

The track which samples the Notorious B.I.G‘s original song “Dreams”, jokingly takes aim at the rappers who have tried to sleep with the “Bed” emcee. Tapping into her mixtape days, Nicki Minaj calls out a slew of rappers including Young Thug, Lil Uzi Vert, Eminem, and Young Money labelmate Drake, who Nicki claims all wanted a piece of the Barbie cakes.

“Drake worth a hundred milli, always buying me shit/ But I don’t know if the pussy wet or if he’s crying and shit/ Em copped a Barbie dream house and you can play the part/ I ain’t tryin’ to bust it open in a trailer park/Used to fuck with Young Thug, I ain’t addressing this shit/ I caught him in my dressing rooms stealing dresses and shit”

Nicki even threw a few shots at her ex-boyfriend Meek Mill, claiming that the “Dreams and Nightmares” emcee has still been creeping in her DMs on the low shooting his shot.

“Meek still be in my DMs, I be having to dump him/ ‘I used to pray for times like this,’ Face ass when I fuck him”

With the release of the album, of course, the BARBZ went in on Twitter, adding hilarious reactions to the track.

Nicki wasn’t letting up on these rappers with Barbie Dreams #Queen #QueenRadio pic.twitter.com/BJuEUDK1Rc

— Bri (@LovelyOTPs) August 10, 2018

https://twitter.com/marie_brownsuga/status/1027958991895154688

https://twitter.com/sentravin/status/1027958006888194048

https://twitter.com/r3al__AJ/status/1027968023888637952

Although Nicki came with it on “Barbie Dreams”, many Hip-Hop fans were unimpressed at her shout out to Biggie, but ignoring of Lil Kim who came up with the original concept of the “Dreams” flip for her 1996 debut Hard Core.

You know Nicki Minaj spittin over Notorious B.I.G.’s “Dreams” has Lil Kim feeling a ways. You just know.

— A Phizer A (@Aqua174) August 10, 2018

https://twitter.com/MarkChang_/status/1027329219666305026

https://twitter.com/Sincerely_Tanya/status/1027960752425066496

Despite the seemingly purposeful jabs and clear influence she’s had on Nicki’s career, Lil Kim said she’s over the Nicki drama. During an interview with 92.3 The Real in Los Angeles, Lil Kim let her frustrations be heard with constantly being asked about Minaj while she’s promoting her own projects.

“Oh God. Let me ask you this. Do you f*ck with me for real?” Kim said. “Okay, so if you f*ck with me, right? Why isn’t this about Kim? Yeah, see if we’re gonna mention one female we’re gonna mention them all. We need to mention them all. We need to bring everybody in and we need to give everybody love. God bless her. What she did she did. But you know what? I wish her the best. I’m past that and over that. At the end of the day, stop asking me about that chick – she did what she did – y’all don’t do that to her. I don’t think you would [ask her about me?]”

Check out “Barbie Dreams” below.

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This world lends itself to cynicism. It’s very easy to be angry when you turn on the news, log on to Twitter, and even walk around your neighborhood (if you still go outside). One of the problems with all this is that once you become jaded, you grow irritated by the perpetually-positive people you encounter, the ones with that obnoxious smile Gorilla-glued to their faces. “There’s too much bad stuff going on to be that happy,” you say. “What’s wrong with them?” you wonder. In a way, Shad might be that perpetually-positive person in the hip-hop world. It turns some people off. Those who prefer their rap more aggressive may not want to sit through a Shad album. But, if you do sit through it, you’ll see that he’s not smiling because he’s naive to the world’s troubles. He’s very aware of his surroundings, and he’s consciously smiling in spite of that.

Flying Colours comes three years after his TSOL album put Shad on Canada’s radar. Since then, he has been showered with critical praise, awards, and even diplomas. He has grown considerably as an artist in the past three years, and Flying Colours reflects that. The album is more focused and yet more experimental at the same time. “Y’all Know Me” has a vintage D’Angelo feel to it, provided by Ebrahim’s crooning, but Shad contrasts the smooth vocals with MF DOOM-like punchlines, as well as heavy topics such as wealth and race.

Further along, we get “Stylin’,”  which is Shad in a nutshell. The flow is laid-back and the wordplay is delivered in a way that feels so effortless you almost don’t appreciate what’s happening. In a recent interview with us, Shad touched on the lyrics referencing the fans who unknowingly insult him: “I got fans that say, ‘Oh hey Shad, I hate rap but I like you.’ Well I hate that, but I like you. At least, I like that you like me.” In stereotypical Canadian fashion, Shad handles it as politely as possible.

Aside from simply being good music, this is an album that can teach you to be a more appreciative person. This is not done in a preachy, KRS-One sort of way, but more of a “teach by doing” method. Records like “Remember to Remember,” which is accompanied by a great electro-pop chorus by Canadian chanteuse Lights, and “Thank You,” which is highlighted by a Jay Z sample from “Moment of Clarity,” find a man who, despite his worries and dark thoughts creeping in, manages to see the bigger picture and realizes his blessings. On the latter record, Shad raps, “I’m proud of my van and my Vancouver apartment. A proud man who went through hardships. Don’t say you can’t. You can do it regardless.”

The ironic thing about Flying Colours is that its merits are also its faults. While the positivity and perspective are welcomed, the listener is left with the desire to hear Shad delve a little deeper into those hardships and bring out some darker vibes. We get glimpses of this depth on “He Say, She Say” and “Dreams,” but the songs feel as though they’re being slightly held back. On the former, Shad paints the picture of a doomed relationship in which the woman is fed up with her aspiring rapper boyfriend suffering from Peter Pan syndrome. “I wanted to do a verse about how they worked it out, but…” the chorus says. The songs could benefit from a more extensive exploration.

Nonetheless, the crowning achievement of the album comes in the form of “Progress,” a two-part song that finds the rapper’s sound at its darkest. The song opens with a spoken word poem and is interpolated with a revised “American Pie” chorus. The 7-minute opus is backed by punishing keys and synths, a great atmosphere for, as Shad describes it, “the night the music died.” The song is such a strong departure from his normal sound, Shad even raps, “I don’t mean to speak this real but, like, damn. I don’t mean to sound depressed, but I am.” Prior to the shift in tone towards the end (the rock-infused part two), the listener is given the most sinister bars of the album:

And the night the music died, nobody investigated it
Just another one of us laying on the Vegas Strip
They closed the casket and the case up quick
Guess they figured it was gang related and never gave a shit

Flying Colours, ultimately, is a strong showing from an ever-maturing artist. While the majority of the songs on TSOL wrapped up at a short 3 minutes or less, most of the records here are flushed out and longer, with two clocking in at over 6 minutes. At a time in his life where one would imagine the Canadian MC would be least focused, given the fact that he had so much happening, we’re given his most concentrated album to date. The listener is left with the feeling that there’s still much to explore before the mic is eventually put away, but the bottom line is that Shad still has a lot to say and it’s all worth listening to.

Related: Shad Talks Flying Colours and the State of Conscious Rap.

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Dreams are a topic of intense interest across cultures and across history, but in recent years, specifically since 2010, Inception has had a monopoly over how dreams are popularly discussed. With his new EP, The Ocean, Deca challenges that monopoly by reminding us of the inherently curious nature of dreams. Instead of encouraging us to analyze and “solve” dreams, Deca creates a space in which dreams and their peculiar details are simply pondered and discussed.

Deca creates this comfortable atmosphere through the music itself and through the structure of the EP. The interludes of the album are composed of excerpts from interviews Deca conducted with friends, family and strangers and they are pieced together in a way that corresponds to the adjacent songs. For instance, on the interlude “The Ocean” the interviewees collectively speak of being trapped in mazes, prisons and other confining places. On “Salome,” the song that precedes “The Ocean,” Deca speaks of a romantic relationship in which he comes to the realization that he feels suffocated. A similar correspondence takes place between the interlude “Tariq Abdul Hamid” and the album’s final track, “Sailboats and Trains.” On the latter, Deca takes Tariq’s call to raise awareness seriously and beckons us to “wake up the dead.”

Of course, the appeal of the album is more than structural. Deca has a vast vocabulary and he wields it with poise, effortlessly weaving together dizzying strings of internal rhymes like a manic Scrabble champion who addictively huffs DOOM lyrics. But beyond the style of Deca‘s rhymes,  his flare, his true talent when it comes to lyrics is his use of symbols. Deca‘s precise religiosity is opaque, but his allusions to biblical imagery are frequently vivid and sharp. On “Edenville” particularly, he concurrently celebrates a couple sitting under an apple tree and questions what exactly they are getting into. Though it might sound heretical to the devout, this kind of ambiguous take on Adam and Eve actually enriches their story. Rather than punishment, perhaps their experience was just the experience of life itself: exciting yet alarming, full of possibility yet empty of promise

The symbol that Deca  explores in the most detail is the ocean. Unlike just water itself as a symbol, the ocean has its own unique symbolic resonances, especially in terms of mystery, intrigue and terror. Throughout the album Deca variously taps into this symbolic reservoir, notably through sound. While none of the self-produced instrumentals can be described as tempestuous or nightmarish or even aquatic, Deca does a fantastic job of creating an atmosphere of misery without having to resort to stock sounds like creaking doors, ghoulish laughs or gunshots. “Angel Butter” shows this dynamic in action: castigating the self-destructive tendencies of his younger self, he loops some sad keys with a very patient bass strum and a sharp drum kick to shame himself for formerly being so lost at sea. Similar affects play out on “Salome,” where a high octave piano sequence dances in the depths with soft hums as Deca realizes that he doesn’t have to keep every fish that gets caught in the mesh.

In the end, Deca compels us to think through our dreams – both the good ones and the bad ones – and reflect on what they tell us about ourselves and our relations to our selves. Additionally, he accomplishes this without the use of force. There are no “bangers” here. His thoughts on dreams and their potential float toward us like debris from a shipwreck; it is up to us whether or not to build a raft or to let them float on, a la Modest Mouse. The Ocean can and will gladly make waves without us. You can purchase or stream the album here.

Incidentally, this is the best music video of the year.

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Dreaming is important. To live without dreaming is to live in a constant state of self-immolation. In the video for “Forgetting How to Dream,” Vancouver rapper Jason James takes that nightmarish way of living and vividly brings it to life, carving himself to pieces, without any clear purpose. The song comes from his collaborative album with production partner Rodney Hazard, Pyramids in Stereo, which was released last November. If you’re looking for thoughtful and macabre rhymes, engaging flows and subdued yet evocative instrumentals, PiS is just for you. In the meantime, watch “Forgetting How to Dream” below.

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