SOUNDTRACK: BJ THE CHICAGO KID-Tiny Desk Concert #907 (November 6, 2019).
At first I thought I might enjoy this Tiny Desk Concert because the first song “East Side High 2012 & Forever” was kind of soulful. There’s some great guitar work from Jairus “Jmo” Mozee and some grooving bass from Joe Cleveland. The song ends after a bout a minute and a half.
And I really liked the bass line that started the next song, “Good Luv’n.” Although I didn’t like BJ’s singing style as much on this one.
I also didn’t realize that he was playing a huge medley of songs:
BJ the Chicago Kid took the roughly 15 minutes we generally allot for a Tiny Desk performance as a challenge. The 34-year old R&B mainstay used his moment at the desk to fit in as many of his most cherished songs as possible — Nine songs in 17 minutes to be exact.
I also had no idea that he was famous or had had a lengthy career.
To get the job done, BJ jumped around his 10-year discography, weaving deep cuts and covers from his early Pineapple Now-Laters days with contemporary cuts like “Church” off his major label debut, In My Mind, to heartfelt odes from his latest project, 1123.
Both most of these songs fell into that sexy R&B singing style with vaguely (or explicitly vulgar lyrics). “Aiight” has some nice twinkling keys from Delvin Brumfield.
“Church” has these fascinating lyrics: “she want to drink, do drugs, and have sex tonight, but I got church in the morning.” I really like the addition of the violin from Peter Lee John on these songs–it definitely adds a new sound to R&B.
During “Love Inside” he tells Tony “Rico” Nichols on the drums: “Rico take me away.”
“Turnin’ Me Up” is musically the most interesting song, and I like the way the chords swell as it takes him to his happy place.
“Get Away” features some sampled backing vocals and this is more of a rapping style song. This song is especially vulgar (when we fucking, when I’m freakin you) which I find weird in this style of seduction song, but which apparently no one else does.
“Can’t Wait” is a slow broody number about how much he hates waiting for love. Then comes “Too Good”
I liked about half of this set, although I feel like most of these songs blended into each other as one long 17 minute song.
[READ: February 15, 2020] “The Red Dot”
I really enjoyed the conversational nature of this story. The telling and retelling of it adds an extra layer of puzzlement to it. Plus phrases like this are fun:
Now do you want to hear the weird part? she said. Yes, give me the weird part, I said.
The narrator talks about listening to Anna talking about a man named Karl–a casual acquaintance for both of them.
Karl owned a restaurant called Gist Mill, “where you go to get the gist of good food”. Karl was skinny and used to run along the river. Anna assumed running as his way of dealing with his divorce–his wife left him for a guy who designed toothpaste tubes.
When Karl finished his run, he would sit by the river, close his eyes and meditate. When he opened his eyes, everything was clear. But on this one instance that he told Anna about, he saw a red dot on the river. The dot was getting closer. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 