I thought it would be fun to record myself laying down the first layer of talkbox vocals for The Foreign Exchange’s “Don’t Wait” track from their album Authenticity. This didn’t end up being the final take, but it’s very close… Those of you who have played around on the talkbox before can truly understand the musicianship and craft of the late Roger Troutman. He did this for a LIVING. Wow… Huge respect, and enjoy!
Source: Textura · By Ron Schepper
Listening to Zo!’s SunStorm is much like taking a bite out of a Proustian madelaine. After just a few minutes of exposure, a veritable floodgate of memories and associations appears: Songs in the Key of Life, Atlantic Starr, Soul Train, Breezin’, Deodato, ’70s Philly Soul, Donny Hathaway–you get the idea. All such associations might suggest that SunStorm is thus a retrograde or ‘old-school’ recording, but I’d prefer to call it timeless. Music of such quietly celebratory sincerity and soulfulness never goes out of style and if anything we could do with a whole lot more of it. Hip-hop is part of SunStorm’s stylistic mix but the album’s primary focus is soul music of the delectably funky and sexy kind (sometimes directly so, as in the love jam “Make Love 2 Me,” which–consistent with its make-out vibe–unspools for ten oh-so-amorous minutes).
Zo! isn’t, by the way, a vocalist but Detroit-area born, DC-based producer and multi-instrumentalist Lorenzo Ferguson, who contributed to The Foreign Exchange’s recent Leave It All Behind. Consequently, he’s the man behind the songs themselves along with their rich, finely crafted arrangements, while members of the Foreign Exchange Music family (Darien Brockington, Carlitta Durand, YahZarah, and Phonte, among others) are responsible for the lush vocals and harmonies that grace all but one of the album’s dozen songs (the lush, flute-driven instrumental “For Leslie”).
The opener “Greater Than The Sun” establishes the uplifting vibe when elegant pianisms lead into Phonte’s early morning ruminations and a swaying hip-hop groove. Carlitta Durand and Phonte pair up for the romantic duet “Say How You Feel,” Sy Smith elevates the strings-laden ’70s soul of “Greatest Weapon Of All Time” with a silken vocal that nicely complements the breeziness of the tune’s swing, Rapper Big Pooh drops rhymes alongside the vocalisms of Eric Roberson and Darien Brockington during the breezy two-stepper “This Could Be The Night,” and YahZarah takes the lead on the labryinthine title track, where the crisp soul-funk of the verses is offset by male shout-outs and Moog synthesizer patterns. With the spotlight on Phonte’s airy vocal harmonies, piano, trumpet, and Latin percussion, “Flight Of The Blackbyrd” pays homage to the kind of ’70s smooth jazz-fusion one associates with George Duke and Bob James. Much praise to Zo! and The Foreign Exchange crew for giving us another positive and community-spirited recording refreshingly free of misogyny and hate.
Thanks to Chris and all of our friends at SoulTracks for making me their featured artist this week! Click here to visit my page on SoulTracks.
I have put together a collection of SunStorm reviews via news publications and all things net… I am really excited with the way the album has gotten out here this time around. This is an entry that I will continue to update as I come upon more links. If you happen to see something that I have missed… feel free to let me know about it…
Leading up to Wednesday, June 23rd’s events, I kept reminding myself, “Self… You know what? You’re about to shoot a damn video…. woooooow.” This wasn’t some “It’s So Cold In the D” lookin’ video where it looks like they shot the footage from their cell phone and all of the extras are family members attempting to outshine even the star performer by fighting for face time. More like a video shot with all intentions of pushing it to household entertainment networks with the possibility of me and close friends and family being able to check us out on TV. It was told to me that I needed only one outfit for the shoot…. Just ONE?! Sheeeeeeeit… I packed a suit with two different shirts, three tie options and a black fedora. THEN I had couple more button-down shirts with slacks and a gray fedora. Now, let’s get this straight, rarely do I EVER overpack when I travel, but if there was any one time that I felt I had the right and the obligation to do so, this was it (*humbled* I later found out that I actually did only need one outfit for the shoot… but dammit, you couldn’t tell me nothin’ during my preparation). Anyway, I had my $3 Megabus ticket to Philly and was ready to get things moving.
I arrived in Philly at about 5pm on Tuesday, the day before the video shoot was to take place. I was picked up from 30th St. Station and taken to the hotel only a few exits past the airport. I immediately changed clothes for the gym and realized my ‘overpackedness’ did not carry over into my workout regiment as I forgot the shoes that I workout in… Therefore, I was forced to run on the elliptical in my damn shelltoe Adidas. 
Let’s just say I broke that 30 minutes of cardio up into two 15 minute intervals as my feet began to scream for mercy… Ironically, I completely erased any future results of my workout by inhaling a strong Cadillac Margarita and chasing that with a well done cheeseburger… :-\ (Joint was GREAT too…).
Staying up late equated to me waking up later than I wanted to. I set the alarm for 8:30a and didn’t even end up crawling outta the bed until about 9:30a to texts and missed calls from those who I had personally invited to the shoot making sure that I had a few more familiar faces in the spot being as though I knew I wouldn’t know most of the extras. I knew that they were gonna be set to shoot Erro’s (Eric Roberson) part first at about 10:30a and being as though I have never even set FOOT onto a video set, I wanted to be around to take everything in. It wasn’t until I woke up fully that I realized…. “Shit, the NC crew a/k/a “my ride to the shoot” (Phonte, Big Pooh, Darien & Aimee) hasn’t hit me up yet!” So I hit Phonte up…… straight to voicemail. At that moment I thought that they must still be in the air. I hopped on Twitter and saw that Big Pooh was tweeting about their delayed flight from NC… Then I figured I could take my shower, grab some breakfast and actually enjoy it now …and that’s exactly what I did, and watching the clock in the process. 10:30a………………….11:00…………. finally at about 11:15, I hit up Phonte again and he said they were at the airport waiting on luggage. Perfect… now they can grab their luggage, come scoop me up real quick and we all roll out to the set…………….. 11:45………………… 12:30p………. Damn, they should have their luggage by now. I called Aimee.
Aimee: Tay, Pooh and Darien are headed up now.
Me: Ok, cool… they’re coming up to the room?
A: …….”No, we’re at the spot!
“UH oh” © Carl Lewis
M: Uhhhh…… I’m still at the room!
SHIT…. I grabbed my things and headed 6 floors down to the lobby and requested that they call me a cab because everyone was at my video shoot…. but ME. How hilarious, my first video shoot and I’m already two hours late to it. I got in the cab with the “late to your own funeral” analogy repeating in my head. The cab driver who picked me up from the hotel seemed real cool, but as soon as I got in and provided him with the address of where I needed to go I could tell he had a bit of a problem with that, uhhh…. literacy thing.
Me: I’m going to Center City…. St. James St.
Cab Driver: Uhh….Sss *blank stare at the GPS*
Me: Yeah, SAINT JAAAY-MMMESSSS STREET
CD: So that’s uhh, S…. uhh….
M: S….T…….. *waiting for him to complete the spelling*
CD: *looks back at me waiting for ME to complete the spelling*
M: ……..”SPACE”……… J……A
CD: I’m not too good with that spelling thing…
Uhhh… This I know.
Once the address was finally entered into the GPS, he was good…. Until it was time to turn right onto Locust St. We approached the Locust street sign, he slowed the cab down damn near to a stop and asked me, “Is that it?” Already understanding his issues with reading, I just blurted out quickly, “YES… THAT’S IT!” Lord have mercy, he had finally gotten me to my destination… It was funny because during the cab ride, I was reading a few tweets from people wondering where I was. I felt like I needed to walk into the spot with a t-shirt on that said “It wasn’t my fault!” or flyers to pass out explaining why I was showing up on set at 1:30p. Regardless, the “Superstar” jokes were automatically on deck upon my arrival… When I stepped into the club, I was thoroughly impressed visually. The still shots that were provided with the video treatment the night before did the spot limited justice. Big Pooh had just finished shooting his performance piece and folks told me how well Erro’s performance shots looked – that combined with a buffet of various PotBelly’s sammiches sitting over on the bar looking so delectable, I was already beginning to feel good about this video. But I was forced to be patient, so I did what came naturally… hell, I ATE. I also made sure to catch up and act a fool with everybody on set as I was informed that there were about three more shots to get before I was even needed… Soooooo, my being late was actually right on time! AND I showed up at lunch! *high fives my damn seff*
Finally, at about 3:00pm we were instructed to go ahead and start getting ready for the shot of myself, D. Brock, Erro, and Pooh walking into the club. I pulled my freshly dry-cleaned black suit out of the plastic and threw it on along with my silver shirt, black tie with silver stripes, and completed it with the black fedora. 
While waiting around about an hour or so, I was asked if I was an extra on the set of my own video twice, which I thought was great. For real, I probably could have made noise on someone else’s blog if I would have answered with, “Nigga… do I LOOK like an extra on this muhfucka?! I’m the damn star-rah!!” …now that I think about it, I actually would have thoroughly entertained myself with that one. But I didn’t, because the reality is…No one knows who the hell I am, much less what I look like. I could have had fun with the girl, gotten myself up and started to play an extra in the video, but we were short on time and things needed to keep rolling. Once our ‘entrance’ scene was set up, I felt like texting everyone I knew on some, “Ayo, we’re about to go on right NOW!” Once the actual recording process started, things felt pretty natural and I got the sense that it was finally my time. Once again, the director Matt Koza and his crew kept telling me how excited they were about the shots they were getting from us, which left me relaxed and more at ease. I had a few more quick scenes to shoot and it was a wrap for me… I left the set feeling pretty good and very accomplished. As a result I kept telling myself, “I have a video now.”
For the post-video shoot meal, we ventured over to Silk City and I conquered four rounds at the bar with Big Pooh and one of our homegirls. Once they seated all of us, we tore into some waings, quesadillas, fish sammiches, salad, and some of the best macaroni and cheese I’ve ever had out in a restaurant. Matter of fact, it was so good that I finished macaroni from two OTHER peoples’ plates outside of my own (greedy). It was a fitting end to such a productive day… So please, enjoy the results!! And a huge thank you to everyone who played an active role in making that day fairly easy for this video rookie…
YahZarah’s fourth album could be heard as the third part of a trilogy that began with the Foreign Exchange‘s Leave It All Behind (2008) and continued with Nicolay’s City Lights, Vol. 2 (2009). Like those earlier albums, The Ballad of Purple St. James is driven by Nicolay and Phonte and involves input from members of the extended FE family, as well as Raphael Saadiq and Marsha Ambrosius. YahZarah had worked on and off with the duo for several years, but never in a concentrated burst like this. The album allows the singer and songwriter to flash her vocal and thematic flexibility in ways her previous albums did not. Most salient is “Why Dontcha Call Me No More,” a gracefully hurtling kiss-off. It could be covered by No Doubt and taken to the Top Ten, but it’s probable that the song would lose some of its bite. YahZarah, whose voice here resembles that of Gwen Stefani, albeit with none of the cutesiness, delivers one of the most commanding scorned-lover performances in recent memory. At the point where an ad-lib or something innocuous is expected, just as handclaps and “whoa-oh”s enter, she slips in an additional verse that begins with “I hope you have a little girl, and she’s the apple of your eye” — uh-oh — and ends with “I hope somebody makes her cry” and a vaguely brainsick laugh. There are other moments when the singer’s magnetic forthrightness is on display, as on the pulsing and intense “The Lie” (“If you gotta go through hell with somebody, why won’t you do it with me?”) and the prime Neptunes/Kelis-like “Change Your Mind” (“I can turn your world around in a heartbeat, and bring you to your knees again”). The more sensitive songs, including a gliding duet with Darien Brockington, a devotional ballad resembling a Teena Marie session in Memphis, and a gleaming Afrofuturist anthem, are just as affecting.
I decided to put this list of sites and blogs together mainly for my mother so that she has everything about the album in one spot. Please feel free to add to the list, or hit me up and let me know of any more …just visiting too sightings…
Tay told me last night that this video would be available today… So check this out and feel free to put the pressure on kats to bring an official version of this joint to fruition…!
Huge shouts to my man Fave outta Houston, TX for featuring me on his website and podcast for this week. He put together a helluva playlist for this week’s edition and included our interview toward the end of the podcast itself.
Fave says:
In this edition the heat and good music increase exponentially from familiar favorites and incredible newcomers to the game. Nod your head to the best in soul and progressive hip hop from across the land and the pond.
The health tip / update deals with the mental / emotional / spiritual issues that attack our physical bodies.
As we quench our thirst for quality tunes, get ready to chop it up with one of the rising musical stars of the new millennium. He’s a dynamic instrumentalist (the piano is his primary weapon of choice) and works with some of the FFC’s most coveted artists. Zo! checks in and breaks down the current state of the industry, taking the stage with the Foreign Exchange and what’s coming soon from his creative mind.
Get a cool washcloth, a glass of ice water and press play. The weekend doesn’t officially begin until the FFC gets in. . .
Enjoy yourself. . .
Click here to download.
~The Playlist~
C17 – Moving Violation Tribute (instrumental)
M64 – Rhythm of the Drum Sa-Ra – Love Czar
?uestlove/Foreign Exchange/Zo!/Carlitta Durand – Purple Flip
Self Scientific – Love Bird (instrumental)
Donnie – Cloud Nince [DJ Spinna Remix]
De La Soul – View
Psymun – Ain’t No Sunshine (instrumental)
Shawn Stockman – If You Were a Boy
Carmen Rodgers – Dream
Otis & Shugg – Journey
Garcia’s Grooves – I Can’t Help It (instrumental)
Atjazz – Before feat. Clara Hill
Zo! & Asylum 7 – Overdue Process
Zo! – 4 Dilla (instrumental)
Nicolay – Rhodes (instrumental)
Foreign Exchange – If She Breaks Your Heart feat. Yahzarah
Zo! & Tigallo – I’m Only Human
Zo! & Asylum 7 – Rigorous (instrumental)
Nicolay – Coltrane (instrumental)
Fave – Another Love Song (instrumental)
9th Wonder – Everybody Loves the Sunshine (instrumental)
G.C. – Off the Wall Tribute (instrumental)
Zo! 