Both excited and curious whenever Lauryn Hill drops a new joint. I remember seeing her perform live with the Fugees, nearly two decades ago. That raw voice of hers cuts right through me, in the best possible way.

My expectations were high, but seeing as they are largely based on the memory of who she was, I’ll try not to let them cloud my judgement. So, what would be fair to expect?

Different thoughts are running through my mind right now. The title ‘Neurotic Society’ pretty much sums up the feeling it invokes; as if you were standing in the middle of a busy street, being totally engulfed by the fast-paced chaos of modern-day living. Very neurotic indeed.

Yes, this is a song to ruminate on. Don’t be quick to judge or dismiss it, just let it marinate for a while. Lauryn Hill’s message is intact and clear. But the instrumental does make it somewhat hard to stay focussed. And maybe that’s the point. Because despite all its little ticks, clicks, and drums there is something mesmerizing about it also. Not exactly the Miseducated Lauryn we know, but still very potent, and always sincere. So is it fair to hold Lauryn to a higher standard? Honestly, I’m just not sure yet.

Today we celebrate the birth of musical genius Stevie Wonder. We really don’t need to explain his epicness, do we? But you know we will anyway.

Stevie Wonder’s repertoire is so extensive and versatile, we can easily listen to his music all day. So that’s exactly what we’re gonna do! We picked a few songs, as hard as that was, that we would use as the soundtrack to our Stevie Wonder-fueled day.

Morning: Being a girl, there really is no better way to start the day than by hearing ‘Isn’t She Lovely?’ in the background while brushing our teeth and trying to get our bed-hair back down.

Afternoon/early evening: Wrapping up at the office, preparing for the night and all it may bring to the beat of ‘Superstition’ to wake everybody back up and get excited about what the rest of the day has to offer.

Night: It’s really really, REALLY hard to pick one Stevie Wonder song that always gets us out of our seats, but if we had to pick one, it would have to be ‘Sir Duke’. Isn’t it just the embodiment of what Stevie is all about?

Closing the club / Quality Time: That’s right, ‘cause after the party it’s the afterparty… The Stevie Wonder jam we’d wanna hear while spending a little Quality Time (see what I did there)? Why, ‘My Cherie Amour’ of course.

Now, we want you to do the same and pick your favorite Stevie Wonder songs for these moments of the day! Who knows, you might even win one of your picks on LP…

Enjoyment of Antoine Fuqua’s latest joint will solely depend on your ability to shut down any and all brain function (for approximately 2 hours) and simply let the carnage wash over you like a warm blanket. This is generic filmmaking taken to the extreme! In most cases, and justifiably so, you would dismiss anything approaching this level of absurdity as trash. But here Fuqua does it with such conviction and cojones, making it nearly impossible for you to hate on the filmmaker or the product.

Damn, he nearly had me believing I was watching a very sharp and funny satire. Films like these died out during the late eighties. I grew up watching Arnie mow down entire henchmen crops in movies like ‘Commando’. Hell, I even enjoyed Michael Dudikoff’s performance as the ‘American Ninja’. That shit was fun, and it had me believing I would grow up to become a fucking samurai warrior unlike any the world has ever seen. Man, those were the days.

‘Olympus Has Fallen’ falls into the same category of movie magic, ticking all the obligatory boxes: a badass hero with nine lives and wisecracks aplenty, a cool and calculated villain (North Korea is the go-to country for those nowadays), action set pieces that suspend disbelief, and Morgan Freeman being all presidential and shit. Hell, this film even has a bromance going for it. Not to forget Angela Bassett, the fluffer of the picture, who’s only function is to occasionally shout out an ‘OMG’, making the severity of the situation known to the public.

This movie basically doesn’t give a shit! And that’s precisely what’s so freaking cool about it. It’s a loud 80s-inspired action flick oozing tons of coolness and badassery, while simultaneously giving fake wanna-be’s like ‘The Expendables’  the middle finger. So Stallone, you might wanna take notes, because master Fuqua just demoted you back to pupil.

Heartbeat, an R&B duo formed by Kati Camara and Ray Novacane, recently released their EP entitled Perfect Fit. Being curious about new R&B acts, I did a little track-by-track review for you.

Perfect fit
Has a hypnotizing chorus. Had to listen to it a few times to get into it. After hearing this, it could go either way: either the rest of the EP is going to consist of tracks that also look to explore the corners of R&B, or it’s going to be more of the same. Which would not be a good thing.

To Be // Stepping Lo
I can hear what they tried to do with it, but it doesn’t really seem to work. It’s one of those songs that seem to just fall short both vocally and musically. It’s not it. Gotta say though: the lyrics are cute.

The Fall // Our Love Is A Losing Game
There’s very little I can say about this track. It sounds like a combination of the first two tracks.

Big City
This song has a lot more appeal for me, primarily because of its haunting start. After the first chorus, however, it fails to build up anticipation enough to keep my attention.

Day By Day
This shows some of the variety I missed on a lot of the other songs on the EP and towards the end it shows the 90s R&B vibe they claim to be inspired by.

Fading
This song works better than the previous songs. After about a minute it seems to strike a good balance between voice and music. And then just like that, the song’s over.

My biggest problem with this EP is the lack of vocals. I by no means expected a new Whitney or Mariah, but each time they try to add a little volume, it just sounds like… Don’t.
The press release talked about how the two artists comprising Heartbeat are deeply rooted in 90s R&B, but I don’t really hear it on the majority of the tracks (I do, however, get a little bit of a Channel Orange vibe every now and then). Which brings me to the second point: for an EP of only six songs, the songs don’t stand out enough. On each track I was waiting for slowly built up anticipation to reach an epic climactic moment in which vocals and production would come together for a grand finale, but it never came (yes, I realize how that sounds. Get your minds outta the gutter). When an act releases an EP, I expect powerful songs because of its limited length. This, perhaps because of the sole producer, sounds like it has too many filler tracks, and for an EP, that’s just inexcusable.

Agree? Disagree? Share your views in the comments!

A couple of weeks ago Twitter started buzzing when Miguel and Mariah Carey tweeted some cryptic messages. Then one of the staff members on the video set gave away the big secret: a duet between the two R&B icons, past and present, was due soon.

Today the track finally saw the light of day: #Beautiful (yes, with a hashtag) was released worldwide. And, as you may very well expect, I wanted to share my thoughts with you.

#Beautiful was written by Miguel, Mariah Carey, Nathan Perez and Brook Davis, and as soon as the track starts you can hear why Miguel’s name comes first in that list. It is very unlike any of Mariah’s more recent work (‘Triumphant’ fiasco, anyone?), starting with an acoustic guitar and Miguel taking on the first verse and chorus. After that, Mariah takes the mic… And she delivers. She makes use of her actual belting voice, without ever really belting. Of course, she still makes full use of her range. Granted, it’s not the same it was 20 years ago, but hey, she still outsings the Rihannas and Katy Perrys on today’s charts.

For me, it took a couple of listens to get into it, but I can really appreciate how understated it is. And, as an R&B fan, I can really appreciate a collabo between the voice of R&B today and one of the icons of the R&B heyday era. I can definitely see myself playing this song on a warm summer evening.

The song is available now on iTunes, the video will drop on Wednesday. Mariah’s still unnamed album will be released in the first half of summer. What are your thoughts?