D'Angelo featuring A.Z. - Lady (remix) (1996)
**1/2 (of four)
D'Angelo makes records like Albert Brooks makes movies - he puts one out then disappears for five to six years. D'Angelo's been gone for over a half-decade at this point, so it's reasonable for me to assume he's just gonna sneak out another album on us at any time. Until then, we've got Brown Sugar, one of the great R+B debut albums, the not-nearly-as-cool follow-up Voodoo and (courtesy of the VH1 Soul channel at 4:45 a.m.) a remix video for "Lady."
Not a lot of effort went into this one, the song or video, but it's truly not half-bad. The "Lady" remix groove is built around a standard drum machine beat and the same three notes pounded into a synthesizer. D'Angelo sits on his piano bench on a plain white soundstage while R+B divas step in to dance, flirt and lip synch. Erykah Badu brings some lime green headwrap to the proceedings, and I think I spot Mary J. Blige and Chante Moore, but I'm a little rusty and can't find any D'Angelo remix video trivia tidbits on the Internet.*
A.Z. pops up toward the end to share the bench with D'Angelo and spit out a verse ("This earth was once lavish / Now it's cursed, left for a savage"), at the conclusion of which he mentions twice that he's in the employ of Dr. Dre's rap outfit The Firm. You remember that debacle, don't you? Supposed to be huge, flopped, and then they couldn't even call themselves The Firm because Robert Plant or some Russian hair band already owned the copyright to the name.
* = Actually, on a Hype Williams-related site just now, I discovered the mystery divas are actually Faith Evans and Joi, but I like my original sentence better, so I'm leaving it. Sometimes ignorance truly does equal bliss.
D'Angelo makes records like Albert Brooks makes movies - he puts one out then disappears for five to six years. D'Angelo's been gone for over a half-decade at this point, so it's reasonable for me to assume he's just gonna sneak out another album on us at any time. Until then, we've got Brown Sugar, one of the great R+B debut albums, the not-nearly-as-cool follow-up Voodoo and (courtesy of the VH1 Soul channel at 4:45 a.m.) a remix video for "Lady."
Not a lot of effort went into this one, the song or video, but it's truly not half-bad. The "Lady" remix groove is built around a standard drum machine beat and the same three notes pounded into a synthesizer. D'Angelo sits on his piano bench on a plain white soundstage while R+B divas step in to dance, flirt and lip synch. Erykah Badu brings some lime green headwrap to the proceedings, and I think I spot Mary J. Blige and Chante Moore, but I'm a little rusty and can't find any D'Angelo remix video trivia tidbits on the Internet.*
A.Z. pops up toward the end to share the bench with D'Angelo and spit out a verse ("This earth was once lavish / Now it's cursed, left for a savage"), at the conclusion of which he mentions twice that he's in the employ of Dr. Dre's rap outfit The Firm. You remember that debacle, don't you? Supposed to be huge, flopped, and then they couldn't even call themselves The Firm because Robert Plant or some Russian hair band already owned the copyright to the name.
* = Actually, on a Hype Williams-related site just now, I discovered the mystery divas are actually Faith Evans and Joi, but I like my original sentence better, so I'm leaving it. Sometimes ignorance truly does equal bliss.
posted by daytime at 5:16 AM
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