Review: Anthony Hamilton – Back to Love
As Day & A Dream’s resident RnB head, I appreciated how well RnB did this year. While it seemed many artists opted to take a Pop-N-B approach to the music, one that emphasized style over soul (*cough* Miguel *cough*), there were bright spots. Jhene Aiko and Marsha Ambrosius immediately come to mind, as does Jill [...]
Review: Common – The Dreamer/The Believer
The mold of Common and his ever-changing appeal in hip-hop has never been truly broken. Experimental albums stand toe-to-toe with his more robust and traditionalist work, each one either critically acclaimed or passed on like a hand me down. No I.D. helped stitch together one timeless hip-hop classic for Com Sense and in the 14 [...]
Review: Drake – Take Care
If there could be any correlation between Aubrey Graham & his current level of success, it would be that of he and John Cena. Cena, a perceived Superman in the world of professional wrestling is hated mostly because of his hokey pandering and still sort of respected as a “company guy”. Drake on the other [...]
Review: The Roots – undun
By the time print is done being tossed around about The Roots, the Philly band will have done one of the rare feats in music. They will have continually delivered upon solid, if not amazing projects for thirteen consecutive instances. Even when the idea of commercialism thrust them to the throngs of being even bigger [...]
Review: Yelawolf – Radioactive
A twisted tongue rapper who has been cutting his teeth for what seems like forever finally gets a chance. That’s the generic storyline you could roll out for Radioactive, the Shady debut album from Alabama’s own Yelawolf but in actuality, you’d be shortchanging Yela, his common man rise from being on a reality show to [...]
Review: Childish Gambino – Camp
Sometime in the early part of 2011, Donald Glover became an actual revelation. Well, a revelation outside of being a comedian and snarky writer for some of television (read: NBC)’s best shows. “Freaks & Geeks” from his EP opened up plenty of eyes to the 28-year old from the Carolinas and it put him in [...]
Review: “The Twenty Eleven LP” – Twenty Eleven
It helps to have people who know people. If it weren’t for Day&ADream contributor Brad Gilmore mentioning Twenty-Eleven’s “Lost My Smile” in his “The Best… For Now” countdown, I would have never heard of the group. Twenty-Eleven is a local Houston group composed of Gilmore himself and Tre Will rapping; Dallas Jones on vocals; Tyler Tran on disc-jockey duties; and Avery Davis on production. Twenty-Eleven has [...]
Review: Mac Miller – Blue Slide Park
Mac Miller’s ascent to being the second ever (completely) indie act with a debut #1 album in the country can be summed up by one word: absurd. It’s absurd to a sect of people, critics more than likely who believe that an artist who raps for the most part about growing up in the newfound [...]
Review: A$AP Rocky – LIVELOVEA$AP
Maybe the guise of A$AP Rocky can be found in the tiny skit buried underneath “Peso”, the slow bouncing, thudding Ty Beats production that eventually became the launching point for New York to consider him as its cultural savant among other things. It’s taken from a YouTube clip (now pulled for copyright infringement) where a [...]
Review: 9th Wonder – The Wonder Years
Dating back to 1999, 9th Wonder has lived off of chopped soul samples and drums to build a catalog of gems and successful full lengths. It’s led him to produce for a Grammy award winning album, become a key contributor to what was supposed to be the final Jay-Z album and have Beyonce geek out [...]
