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Tag: Keith Sweat

  • 2009 BET Awards Play By Play

    jamiefoxxMoney Mike usually live blogs the BET Awards, but with the passing of Michael Jackson, he’s not in the mood to try and be fun. Thus, I’m taking the reigns for him this year. Being on the West Coast, I can’t blog it live, but I’ll give you my own play by play.

    The show opens with footage from a previous BET Awards where Michael Jackson and James Brown were on stage together.

    – New Edition opens the show with their Jackson 5 tribute. They even busted out the Stop The Love You Save! dance. I’ll give them an A for effort. My friend asked me which one was Bobby Brown, and I immediately said, “The fat one.” Bobby’s definitely eating good these days.

    – Jamie Foxx is hosting and he came out in the red leather jacket and the 3 inches too short slacks. He tried to do some MJ dancing, but he must not have had time to practice. He did much better with his broham Braxton on “The Jamie Foxx Show”.

    – Tyra Banks walked down the stage in some heels that made her look like she could post up Shaq. After giving out the “Best Male Hip-Hop Artist” award to Lil’ Wayne, she had to get on her knees just to give him a hug.

    – You know, people are ready to give Usher the torch as the next closest thing to MJ, but I think you may have to look at my boy Ne-Yo. His vocals are far more similar to MJ’s. If only he didn’t look more like a young Samuel L. Jackson.

    – Sorry y’all, brother has a head that was made for hats. I heard that Barry Bonds looked at Ne-Yo and said, “Damn, he has a big ass head.”

    – (He tore up Lady In My Life.)

    – They showed Joseph Jackson in the crowd and all I could think of was, “Joe stop beatin’ the kids.” Damn that Jackson’s American Family movie.

    – I’m going to guess that Kanye West’s girl was a big headed baby. She also has a head that was made for hats. If she and Ne-Yo had a baby, they’d test that kid for HGH out of the womb.

    – Jamie Foxx is singing Blame It and all of a sudden and for no reason whatsoever, Snoop Dogg joined him. I don’t think anyone Snoop hangs out with blames it on the alcohol. They blame it on something else. Also, I wonder if T-Pain knows that you can’t kick in judo. I guess he couldn’t find anything to rhyme with karate.

    – Does anyone really care about what Tiny and Toya are doing these days? I mean, it sucks that y’all got kicked out of Destiny’s Child, but you probably deserved it. Be happy that Beyonce’s daddy just kicked you out of the group. If Joe Jackson was your manager, he would’ve told you to get a switch off the tree and take it like a man.

    – In Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em’s song, he sings, “I gotta question, why they hatin’ on me?” Well, I gotta answer for you bruh. You’re terrible.

    – Here’s a quote from T-Pain: “He pretty much said everybody I was gonna say.” That dude can mangle some English.

    – Ne-Yo won for “Best Male R&B Artist”. If you haven’t heard Year Of The Gentleman, go get that record. It was my favorite record of 2008.

    245404723_c43d075972– Beyonce’s on the stage singing Ave Maria. I’m trying to decide if she’s supplanted Trish Stratus as the number one girl on my list. I think the only thing that stops her from being number one is that I know in 10 years, that junk in her trunk might become junk in a caboose.

    – Ok, I made a mistake. Tiny and Toya aren’t former Destiny’s Child members. I must’ve had something in my eye when I mistook them the first time. They’re former hook-ups of TI and Lil’ Wayne. Yep, these days that’s all it takes to get your own reality show. If Florida Evans was still alive, she’d say, “Damn, damn, damn!”

    – Jamie introduced a skit for a fake movie with he and Martin Lawrence starring as Shenehneh and Wanda as bank robbers. What does it say about me that I would see that on the first day it came out?

    – When artists say that they didn’t prepare a speech because they didn’t expect to win, I just want to go oops upside their head. How long can it take to put together five names that you want to remember? Or is it just cool to act humble, yet unprepared?

    – Ok, I’m not gonna lie. It still hasn’t hit me that MJ is gone. This just seems like every other kind of BET Awards show where people give MJ props.

    – For some reason, Keith Sweat is on the stage. Keith looks really exceptionally good for being 100 years old.

    – It must be New Jack Swing night as Guy just stepped on the stage. My man Aaron Hall can still bring it.

    – Now it’s BBD’s turn. They’re performing Poison. That used to be my go to song when I was 14 until my dad told me that it probably wasn’t a good idea to sing the lyric, “Me and the crew used to do her,” out loud.

    – I do follow their advice until this day though. Never trust a big butt and a smile.

    – Was that Ciara singing Heal The World? The dude did a pretty good job.

    – Beyonce is up for “Best Female R&B Artist” against the likes of Jennifer Hudson, Keyshia Coles, Jazmine Sullivan, and Keri Hilson. When she wins, she better not say that she didn’t have anything prepared. She should’ve started writing her speech the second the nominations were announced.

    – I wonder if when Jay-Z starts with, “This is death of Autotune, a moment of silence,” T-Pain and everyone he’s currently working with just start shedding tears.

    – Day26 introduced Don Cornelius and Q got through the intro without saying, “This is real talk,” or popping all the veins in his neck.

    – Don just said that Joe Jackson was one of his heroes. There are about 5,000 jokes to be written on that line alone and I’m not touching it.

    – Holy (choose your favorite curse word here)! Tevin Campbell is on stage for the O’Jays tribute. That dude needs a comeback record like yesterday.

    – Tyrese is also out singing in the tribute and he didn’t randomly insert the words, “LA Lakers” into the lyrics. Nice job Tyrese.

    – Tiny is accepting an award for TI. This is the only reason I’m thankful that this show isn’t in HD. She’s not a handsome woman.

    – Janet Jackson is a brave woman for being on this show tonight.

    – Now it’s time for the MJ tribute. I’m all for Jamie singing I’ll Be There, but couldn’t they have brought out Mariah for this one?

    I hope I was able to play it off well enough. As tough as it was to watch all these tribute performances, it was still fun to see everyone big up Mike.

    I’m not sure there’d be a BET if not for Michael Jackson. Peace!

    Photo of Jamie Foxx by Rafael Amado Deras and shared via creative commons

    Photo of Beyonce by Osei and shared via creative commons

  • They Put Me In The Mix – Jam Slow

    My MHW brothers have been putting up mix tapes. I’m not really a big mix tape guy, except when it comes to slow jams. I think I’ve always connected better with slow jams. I’ve noticed that artists use slower songs to communicate real issues or possible heartbreak or happiness much better than in faster songs. I guess the reason to have faster songs is much different and when you’re making the crowd dance, they probably don’t care what you have to say. But with slower songs, it’s different. Artists emote biographically through their music as it is, and I think they do so more during slower songs.

    When I was about 20 years old, I started making mix tapes of slow songs. I especially enjoyed the love songs. Call me soft or whatever. But just singing about love is inspiring. The first tape I created was called Jam Slow. Yep, that’s the title on the old cassette tape. I didn’t want to call it Slow Jams, so I went the other way.

    I’ve always had an idea on what I wanted to do with these tapes. I never just wanted to throw a bunch of songs on a tape and go with it. I looked at how artists told stories with their songs. They fit into a few buckets. There are the courting type songs, the early love songs, the “we have a future together”songs, the marriage songs, and the most famous of them all, the break up songs. I put them in order, not by artist necessarily, but by what the content was in each song. The first songs would be the courting songs, and then next would be the early love kind of songs that would then segue into real relationship songs. After that, the break-up songs would come in, and then the “get back” songs, and usually at the end, I saved either the marriage songs or the songs about starting a family. I did this with all the impending tapes as well. Now before you start to notice how weird I am, I’ll get right to the music.

    Look At Those Outfits

    Jam Slow (circa 1996/97)

    1. Falling – Montell Jordan
    2. Knocks Me Off My Feet – Tevin Campbell
    3. For Your Love – Stevie Wonder
    4. Down Low (Nobody Has To Know) – R. Kelly
    5. Nobody – Keith Sweat featuring Athena Cage
    6. Stay Gold – Stevie Wonder
    7. I’m Still In Love With You – New Edition
    8. When Can I See You Smile Again – Bell Biv Devoe
    9. Can You Stand The Rain – New Edition
    10. Never Can Say Goodbye – Jackson 5
    11. How Could You – K-Ci and JoJo
    12. If You Think You’re Lonely Now – K-Ci Hailey
    13. Lately (live version) – Jodeci
    14. Everytime I Close My Eyes – Babyface
    15. The Lady In My Life – Michael Jackson
    16. Love U For Life – Jodeci
    17. The Day – Babyface

    Look At Bob Wear The Bandana Under The Hat

    You can definitely see what kind of music I was listening to at that time. Lots of Jodeci, Steveland, NE, and MJ. I can remember being done with a relationship right around this time (and possibly sooner), but I don’t remember that being a large factor in the songs that I chose to be on the tape, like would happen during other times in my life. Some thoughts on it.

    • Falling by Montell Jordan is really the only song I’ve been able to get into by him. Of course, everybody has heard This Is How We Do It, but Falling is the only place where I’ve been able to truly get into his voice.
    • There are two Stevie Wonder songs on this list but also two Stevie Wonder covers by other artists – Lately and Knocks Me Off My Feet.
    • Stay Gold isn’t really a relationship love song per say, but it’s sort of a universal love song that I’ve always thought was magical.
    • New Edition, BBD, New Edition – I’ve always dug Ricky Bell’s voice.
    • Never Can Say Goodbye is definitely the oldest song on the list, but somehow it sounds just as fresh (at least in 1996) as the others.
    • I probably OD’d a bit on Jodeci at the time, but it was what I was listening to.
    • The Day is the song that probably describes the feeling of immediate fatherhood better than anything else I’ve ever heard.

    Oh such tears of joy, I’ve never known
    I can’t remember
    It’s like a song, I’ve never heard
    I’ve never sung, but know the words

    I’ll be back soon with the next version of Jam Slow. I dropped the Jam and shortened it to J Slow.

  • Chart Chat 5/25/08: Duffy, Keith Sweat & More!!


    Y’all know what it is…here are this week’s Top 20 Singles & Albums, courtesy of the folks at Billboard.

    Top 20 Singles:

    1) “Lollipop” Lil’ Wayne feat. Static Major
    2) “Bleeding Love” Leona Lewis
    3) “Take a Bow” Rihanna
    4) “Love in This Club” Usher feat. Young Jeezy
    5) “No Air” Jordin Sparks & Chris Brown
    6) “Sexy Can I” Ray J. feat. Yung Berg
    7) “4 Minutes” Madonna feat. Justin Timberlake
    8) “Pocketful of Sunshine” Natasha Bedingfield
    9) “Touch My Body” Mariah Carey
    10) “Damaged” Danity Kane
    11) “Love Song” Sara Bareilles
    12) “Leavin’” Jesse McCartney
    13) “Bust it Baby Pt. II” Plies feat. Ne-Yo
    14) “What You Got” Colby O’ Donis feat. Akon
    15) “Say” John Mayer
    16) “Low” Flo-Rida feat. T-Pain
    17) “With You” Chris Brown
    18) “Love in This Club Part II” Usher feat. Beyonce & Lil’ Wayne
    19) “Bye Bye” Mariah Carey
    20) “Forever” Chris Brown

    Top 20 Albums:

    1) “Narrow Stairs” Death Cab for Cutie
    2) “Nothing But the Best” Frank Sinatra
    3) “We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things” Jason Mraz
    4) “Rockferry” Duffy
    5) “Spirit” Leona Lewis
    6) “E=MC2” Mariah Carey
    7) “Home Before Dark” Neil Diamond
    8) “Hard Candy” Madonna
    9) “35 Biggest Hits” Toby Keith
    10) “Just Me” Keith Sweat
    11) “Taylor Swift” Taylor Swift
    12) “Division” 10 Years
    13) “Now That’s What I Call Music 27” Various Artists
    14) “Greatest Hits: Every Mile a Memory” Dierks Bentley
    15) “Gavin DeGraw” Gavin DeGraw
    16) “Awake Live” Josh Groban
    17) “Lyfe Change” Lyfe Jennings
    18) “On My Way Here” Clay Aiken
    19) “Juno” Soundtrack
    20) “Sleep Through the Static” Jack Johnson

    *So…um…who the hell is 10 Years? Not that I profess to be the beginning and ending of all things music, but it’s a bit rare for me to have never once heard of an artist in the Top 20. Oh,well.

    *A nice cluster of newbies in the Top 4, including a well-deserved bow at the top from Death Cab for Cutie.I’d imagine the biggest surprise would be from British soul singer Duffy at #4. Her single “Mercy” also rockets up the chart, landing in the Top 30 this week.

    …and is it me, or does this song sound suspiciously like…

    *As tipped off last week, Usher cruises into the Top 20 with his “Love in This Club” remix, which features the beyond-ubiquitous Lil’ Wayne as well as only slightly less ubiquitous Beyonce. Personally, I think it’s time for *both* of them to take a vacation.

    *Clay Aiken, I think it’s time to say bye-bye to your career, eh?

    *Keith Sweat is in the Top 10 of the album charts for the first time in almost a decade (and hits the #1 spot on the R&B albums chart for the sixth time). Proof that begging will *never* go out of style!

    Let’s take it back!!!