Erykah Badu has found her life calling, and according to her, it has nothing to do with music. Badu has revealed in the September 12, 2011 issue of People Magazine that she is focusing her attention around midwifery, and has been performing as a doula (non-medical childbirth counselor). Badu, or as she styles herself for this role, Erykah Badoula, while not performing, recording, or studying to become a certified midwife, is now lending her stature to the cause of midwifery, as she is now the spokeswomen for the International Center for Traditional Childbearing, and she will appear at the Southeast Black Midwives & Healers Conference in D’lberville, Mississippi, October 14-16.
San Francisco’s biggest urban marketing & events production company (and the force behind Hip-Hop.com) will celebrate its seventh birthday in August, and it was decided that one party just wasn’t enough. Erykah Badu, reprising her vinyl-spinning persona DJ Low Down Loretta Brown, and Questlove of Twitter fame (and incidentally the frontman/drummer of The Roots) will come and do their respective things for Ankh Marketing’s 7th Anniversary Shows on August 12 at Mezzanine and August 13 at Public Works. Know all about their recordings but not sure how they play records? Check out our reviews and galleries of Erykah Badu’s and Questlove’s last DJ sets in San Francisco back in April.
Guerilla Union has announced this year’s Rock the Bells Festival lineup, which will tour with stops in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Boston. As with last year’s event, Rock the Bells is going classic, bringing in some of the biggest hip-hop artists around to perform their most memorable material. This year’s headliners are no strangers to the now-classic summertime hip-hop festival, as Ms. Lauryn Hill, performing songs from Miseducation, and Nas, performing from Illmatic, set to grace the same stage. Joining them on the classics tip are Cypress Hill, Mos Def and Talib Kweli as Black Star, half of the Wu-Tang (GZA, RZA as host, Ghost and Rae, and Masta Killah), Erykah Badu, Mobb Deep (along with Big Noyd), Immortal Technique, Black Moon, Souls of Mischief, Evidence of Dilated Peoples, and Slaughterhouse, the supergroup of Joe Budden, Royce the 5’9″, Joell Ortiz and Crooked I. For the cool kids, there’s Mac Miller, Blu, Exile and Fashawn, Childish Gambino (aka, Donald Glover of TV’s Community), Random Axe, Macklemore, Big KRIT, Freddie Gibbs and Roc Marciano, all there on support.
Erykah Badu is a woman of many faces, and she has names for each of them–Medulla Oblongata, Analog Girl in a Digital World, and Sarah Bellem. Tonight’s featured persona is DJ Lowdown Loretta Brown, and as the name implies, there was plenty of funk and soul to go around tonight. At Ruby Skye, on the most marijuaniest of days, she played a DJ set that seemed to move from style to style with a heaping of classic soul to glue everything together. read more »
San Francisco’s big summer music festival, Outside Lands, just released their lineup for 2011. Hip-hop is well-represented again, and features among the headliners Erykah Badu, the Roots, and Big Boi. The festival returns to its 3-day format, and will be held August 12-14.
Jamaica is also well-represented, with Major Lazer, featuring Diplo and Switch, and Collie Buddz. Girl Talk will also headline, if you haven’t had your fix of UGK and Ke$ha blends. Longtime Bay Area heads should perk a bit that Latyrx, the duo of Lyrics Born and Lateef, are reuniting for the festival. Hip-Hop.com featured artist Ana Tijioux returns to the Bay. And you might not have heard of Macklemore, but the Seattle emcee and his partner on the boards Ryan Lewis may be the city’s newest nationally emerging hip-hop act.
KING is a soulful, organic trio of young women here to bring a fresh creativity to music and change the world through their art.
THE STORY began on an August afternoon in Los Angeles, or in a winter rehearsal session in Boston, or in April 1986 in Minneapolis, depending on how you define destiny.
Twins Paris and Amber Strother began their musical journey by listening to favorites of their parents together from the crib, and once they were able to crawl found their way to the piano. Amber nurtured her gift for singing by absorbing everything musical around her, and in turn developed an intricate, magical tone and one-of-a-kind voice, as well as a unique skill for composition and songwriting. Through exploring a melting pot of artists, genres, musical ideas and movements, Paris found her own personal voice for the keys. The twins spent years unknowingly ripening their craft of writing together until they parted ways and left Minneapolis, with Amber to pursue studies in Chicago and Paris to enroll at music school in Boston where…
A chance meeting with a young woman with a golden voice and incredible ear changed her life. Los Angeles native Anita Bias had fallen in love with music and art as a young girl, and spent years cultivating her voice, imaginative and vivid songwriting, and creative styling. Their Boston encounter stayed fresh in the minds of both, and when fate brought Paris to California and reunited them years later at a club in Los Angeles, they knew it was the start of something special.
During Amber’s first trip to LA and the living room session that followed, the three realized that they were born to create together. At the first show of the unofficial and then-unnamed band, they, along with the audience, were said to have seen fireworks in the air. The unique blend of voices, engaging harmony, and detailed songwriting the group exhibited came completely naturally to them. Amber, who had been since moved back to Minneapolis, sent for her belongings. KING was born.
THE STORY EP is KING’s debut project, wherein all songs are written by Paris, Amber, and Anita, and fully produced by Paris. THE STORY, SUPERNATURAL, and HEY are the result of a year’s worth of loving and learning, experiencing and experimenting, and ultimately finding the music within themselves.
