Music: Commentary Track for January 30th #musicmonday [@roxfontaine, free MP3 downloads]

January 31, 2012 by Hannibal Tabu Leave a Comment

Senior hip hop correspondent Rox Fontaine will be recommending selections from our weekly #musicmonday column.Click through to the link below to find the songs you'll love.

This week was torture. So much half assed music in this bunch. I have 2 joints …

Robert Francis, "Some Things Never Change"
We found ourselves trudging mentally through what seemed like an endless swamp of uninspired music this week. What a welcome break from the lame when this track came on! We were instantly thrust into a Corona commercial and challenged to find our beach. Well, it didn't take us long to find one and while we admittedly had a Heineken instead, the sentiment was the same. This cut makes us feel all summer music festival inside. The folk vocal styling and guitar are layered on top of a Reggae drum pattern that just feels great. Robert Francis' quiet melodies are beautiful and true; opening up to a robust falsetto at the bridge. Indeed, some things never change. Good music is still good music.

Melo-X, "The Dark Joker"
"The Dark Joker" is geek du jour. Melo-X's mastery of the MPC is flat out awe inspiring. His ability to affect sounds and rhythmic patterns with this machine seem limitless.

Listening to this instrumental develop is having a wide awake dream. As you listen to shapes and colors change, the experience becomes therapeutic. One becomes lost in the pan and stereo effects until the drum and synth break that crescendos at the 3 minute mark. Then it's totally euphoric. The rise and fall of that section is just … stupid. You'll be playing this one back to back we assume.

You can download all these songs and more at the link below.

[Source: Komplicated]

About Hannibal Tabu

Born in Rockford, Illinois; raised in Memphis, Tennessee; matriculated in
Tacoma, Washington and broadcasting live from Los Angeles, Hannibal Tabu is
a writer, a brother, a husband, a misanthrope, a son, an emcee, an uncle, a
poet, a father, a designer, a nephew, a romantic, a storyteller, and by
god, a fan. He spent more than ten years doing the journalist thing for
Vibe, Slave Trade, MTV Online, Rap Pages, America Online, the Los Angeles
Sentinel, Spinnerrack.com, Speak and The Source. Hannibal has worked as a
web designer/producer and graphic artist for American Honda, eHobbies.com,
Quicken.com, Express.com, the California Association of REALTORS, Disney
Channel, NextPlanetOver.com, Toyota Motor Sales, Kaiser Permanente,
California Bank & Trust and many more. As a poet, Hannibal has been
published in The Drumming Between Us, (sic) Vice Verse, Drumvoices Review,
Voices From Leimert Park and other anthologies, as well as being author of
the collection BORN BENEATH AN ANGRY STAR and co-author of FLIGHT MANUAL.
As a novelist, he's written THE CROWN: ASCENSION and FARAWAY (both
available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble & Smashwords) and the upcoming sci fi
political thriller ROGUE NATION. He's the winner of the 2012 Top Cow Talent Hunt, writer of Waso: Will To Power for Stranger Comics, Project: Wildfire for Legends Press, and co-writer of an issue of Watson & Holmes (alongside 2 Guns writer Steven Grant) for New Paradigm Studios. For six years he was the editor-in-chief of the Los Angeles Herald-Dispatch group of newspapers, is currently the co-owner and editor-in-chief of Black geek website Komplicated at the Good
Men Project, and uses his Operative Network website (www.operative.net) to
publish his poetry, market what he's doing, rant at the world and emit
strangled cries for help. In addition to all that, Hannibal collects comic
books, has scores of action figures, DJs private parties, is a Mac OS
zealot, sings and sometimes even hosts karaoke, practices a form of
spirituality based on ancient Egyptian belief, and goes to bed every day,
secretly hoping that half the world will commit suicide in his honor.