Never too sick to miss a good concert… After taking some painkillers, vitaminsupplements and a tea with rum and honey, I had pepped myself enough to see Jaguar Wright perform at Rotown in Rotterdam.
Rotown is a cafe slash restaurant slash popstage and as a venue for concerts quite okay as it has to limit audiences to about 250/300 peeps. This makes it intimate, but as the night proved it also had some negative side-effects.

The gig started with a sweet performance by Keke Wyatt. Together with Jag’s band and backing vocals she gave quite a taste of her capabilities. Great voice, funny girl, good interaction with the crowd and definitely not shy.

After a short intermezzo by Jag band – big-up to the guy on keys! This Ghostface Killah look-a-like kept smiling and enjoying himself all night during all performances, even to Jaguar’s (ironical) annoyance – Miss Wright entered the stage.
Standing not far from the stage, I was amongst the real fans, and we really enjoyed her first three songs… all in an extended version and vocally impressive.
Then she wanted to do a slow and delicate track which she hardly even started… when she stopped the band, set aside her mic and started singing/screaming to the crowd: “If you came here to talk… you came to the WRONG place !!!”
Ouch. I was ashamed, the constant mumbling and talking of about half the crowd was really disrespectful and I really admired Jaguar for directly appointing the frikkin’ peeps for doing so.
So she continued to sing… but after a few songs the same happened and she even talked to the manager of Rotown on the audience’s behaviour. Thank God for the real fans she came back and did the rest of the concert without interruptions.

Jaguar Wright is a all-round singer with an outspoken view on life in all ways. Vocally she showed the many sides of her voice and I really do not exaggerate to compare her to Jill Scott. Besides all I really respect the fact that she was able to let go of the negative vibe and even talk about how lucky we are not to live in the USA, how much respect she gets in Europe etc… wow.
Tonight her last performance in her European Tour… in (still my favourite) Paradiso – Amsterdam

Yet another artist high on my list… Thanks Jag!

Can somebody please tell what the heck ever happened to sexmusic-god Maxwell???

The Roots drop a double greatest hits album “Home Grown! The Beginner’s Guide To Understanding The Roots Volume One And Two” on November 15th.

To summarize the album, some comment by ?uestlove: “This is a love letter to our Okayplayers and an introduction to the fans that have yet to dive in to see what the madness has been about for the last 13 years,” he says. “This should prepare them for the next 13.”

With guestappearances by Eve, Common, Beanie Sigel, Jaguar Wright, Jill Scott, Raphael Saadiq, Roy Ayers, Dice Raw, D’Angelo, Mos Def and others, this will surely be some massive introduction to newcomers, and pure pleasure to those familiar with The Roots.

Special features on this double disc are a radio performance of “Sacrifice”, the unreleased cut “Quicksand Millennium” and a remix of “Don’t Say Nuthin’ “. Extensive backgroundreading can be found in the enclosed booklet.

Tracklisting as known:

Volume 1:

01 – Proceed 2 (featuring Roy Ayers)
02 – Distortion to Static
03 – What They Do (featuring Raphael Saadiq)
04 – The Next Movement
05 – Good Music
06 – The Lesson Pt 1 (featuring Dice Raw)
07 – Star
08 – The Hypnotic (featuring D’Angelo)
09 – Silent Treatment
10 – You Got Me (featuring Jill Scott and Eve)
11 – Clones (featuring MARS and Dice Raw)
12 – What You Want (featuring Jaguar Wright)
13 – Act Too: Love of My Life (featuring Common)
14 – Do You Want More?!!??!?!
15 – It’s Coming (live 1993)
16 – Double Trouble (featuring Mos Def)

Volume 2:

17 – Sacrifice (live on BBC Radio One)
18 – No Alibi
19 – Essaywhuman?!?!?!?!
20 – Break You Off (live 2003)
21 – Quicksand Millennium
22 – Pass the Popcorn (Revisited)
23 – Dont Say Nothin’ (Remix)
24 – Adrenaline, (featuring Beanie Siegel and Dice Raw)
25 – The Lesson Pt 3 (featuring Jag and Dice Raw)
26 – Y’all Know Who (Ruff Mix)
27 – Thought@Work
28 – BOOM!
29 – The Seed/Melting Pot/Web (live on BBC Radio One)
30 – Din Da Da

And yet again: R Kelly on fire with lawsuit against Jay-Z.

In the small setting of RoTown – Rotterdam, I will attend Jaguar Wright‘s gig November 17th.

Maybe an impossible list, but for sure interesting to see who you feel most right now… Think Soul, NeoSoul, HipHop, Underground and Mainstream.

To make a start:
- Slum Village
- Floetry
- Little Brother
- Eric Roberson
- Raheem DeVaughn
- Kem
- Common
- Lathun
- Trey Songz
- Dwele
- Kindred Spirit
- Teedra Moses
- Raphael Saadiq
- KanYe West
- Rahsaan Patterson
- Talib Kweli
- John Legend
- Lina
- Glenn Lewis
- Goapele
- Martin Luther

Please comment with your additions to this list… I will make sure that as soon as possible links to all artists are added. (url’s welcome)

Wow! Little Brother’s “The Minstrel Show” is definitely a show worth seeing!

In short: The Beef is over: Jay-Z AND Nas is the beginning of a new era… more on sohh.

Yes, I was disappointed in an undescribable way. But as things like this can happen (Losing your passport!!! Aaahh!!!) to any person, I will just hope that Dwele will consider scheduling some new concert in Holland. P’lease???