Cue the young kids rolling their eyes

My download of the week is a tune I'd actually heard in a club a few months back, but only recently learned the name or the artist. It's called "One Thing" by a local D.C. singer named Amerie, who looks like Aaliyah and sounds like J. Lo doing her very best Mary J. Blige impersonation.

Like the aforementioned Ms. Lo, Amerie's voice is just a tad too reedy, and her range similarly narrow, to ever really have a shot at venturing successfully into Mary J territory. However, on this particular track, she stretches that range to its absolute breaking point, which really helps sell the emotion of what would otherwise be some fairly pedestrian lyrics.

But what really makes the whole thing work is the incredibly terse, raw Meters-style backing track, with drum fills that are a bit reminiscent of Beyonce's "Crazy In Love"...but in a good way. Not sure who the producer was on this track, but I hope he has a bright future.

Do check it out.

ADDENDUM: My fellow Newarker Chris Redwood informs me that both "Crazy In Love" and "One Time" draw upon the D.C.-centric genre of "go-go" music for their incessant, driving rhythms. I thank him for the pointer. I'd heard of go-go before, but I always associated it with E.U.'s "Da Butt," which has quite a different flavor than these songs.

How is it that a former urban hipster wannabe can find himself so out of it, so early in life?

Comments

[Martin]

Welcome to the Blogosphere (sp?)!

[RJLehmann]

Thank you very much, Prof. Grace. I'm sure I'll have plenty to add on insurance and liability issues going forward, but I figured it would be better to start small and work my way up to that.