Have you ever been in a relationship that made you feel like you’re stuck in an amusement park, on a ride that just keeps going round and round but never really seems to get anywhere? A ride that starts out fun and exciting, but then the novelty wears off and you just want to be back on solid ground again?
Plain and simple, you’re spun!
Our latest track features the vocals and musical talents of the one and only Kristen Fletcher. Enjoy!
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On Wednesday of this week I was lucky enough to accompany my good friend and superstar singer, Neha, to Radio 2RDJ. She was invited to join the most lovely DJs Liche and D for their Mixxbosses radio show – a 2 hour slot dedicated to Neo/Soul music!
The evening ended up being a lot of fun for us – getting to play a few songs unplugged (an American Boy/Kiss medley, and a rendition of one of our original tracks, Your Love), as well as general chit chat with the girls in between their regular show features. Neha’s vocal performance was angelic (as always), and despite having some butterflies before going on air, she kept myself and the listeners well entertained with her amusing anecdotes.
I must be honest and say that I was not expecting a whole lot from the show in terms of the playlist (although admittedly I had never heard of the station/show before we went on). Much to my [pleasant] surprise, DJ Liche dropped a whole bunch of awesome music – some sexy, some groovey, some funky, some old school, and some fresh new stuff. Props to Liche for her knowledge of soul/RNB, and for her exquisite taste in tunes!
Some highlights for me were tracks by Ryan Leslie, Pharrell, John Legend, and a couple of new artists that I have since been exploring. They also had an interview with the one and only Gary Pinto, and a couple of tracks from his newly released album (awesome, banging tracks – might I add).
Here is a little snippet from the show (I don’t know if the full performance is up anywhere, but this was a sassy little freestyle that Neha conjured up at the end of the show)
Thanks again to Liche and D for the fun times and hospitality, and I look forward to tuning into their show for more great tunes
Allow me to introduce one of my newest friends, and hands down one of the most talented musicians/singers I have ever met – Kristen Fletcher. We met on what started out a gloomy Saturday morning, at one of the infamous “Shai Breakfast Club” gatherings. Note that I say gloomy, only in terms of the weather – not of the company or the festivities. Just for the record, your parties rock Shai!
Kristen and I, along with some of the other musos we met there shared the privilege of jamming together and talking music into the wee hours of the evening. It was very quickly established that we shared an insurmountable adoration for the eternally inspiring Stevie Wonder – possibly the strongest foundation two music-lovers can build a friendship on!
After catching up for a few jam sessions and the like, we decided to start collaborating on some original music. “Live My Life” first sprouted from some thoughts Kristen told me she had been pondering recently, since reading a particular book (I don’t recall the name of the book, so it will be K-10’s little secret for now).
We started playing around with a few different chords, Kristen on the keys and myself on my Maton – and came up with some catchy verse and chorus progressions. This was followed by some rather hooky vocal ideas (if I don’t say so myself). Following this, we spent a couple of sessions refining the lyrics/melodies and laying out the song structure.
Being the gun that she is, it only took Kristen a single session to lay down the bulk of the vocals – leaving me with a whole lot of great stems to play with – “play” being the official term reserved for all that super-technical stuff we producers do in our studios after the sun goes down and regular people go to sleep ☺
Now, it is my pleasure to present the collaborative sounds of Kristen Fletcher and Jaden Music -“Live My Life”.
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Well folks, it looks like the Jaden Remix segment is becoming a weekly installment! Our latest piece of work comes to you courtesy of the deliciously deviant Rihanna, in the form of her most recent single “Rude Boy”. After hearing the first 10 seconds of this track, I was totally sold on it! It took me back to some of my fondest musical memories – particularly a little number you may remember from the late 90s called Pony, by Ginuwine (produced by Timbaland).
Much to my delight, I very quickly managed to locate a near-immaculate acapella of Rude Boy and got straight down to business. We had an absolute ball putting this one together – keeping a little bit of that reggae vibe, funking up the bass, and then rocking out hard on the guitar. What better way to spend my day?!!
Anyhow, enough background information – bring on the tunes!
PS I am currently taking song requests, so let me know if you’ve heard something recently that is just asking to be remixed!
Hey all, it has certainly been a week for remixes. I was feeling particularly inspired following our efforts with the Justin Bieber track – so here is another one for y’all to check out… Usher’s club banger O.M.G (although I’m still not entirely sure whether the “G” stands for “Gosh” or “God”… perhaps both! ) And if you are digging on either (or both) of these remixes, be advised that there is another one on the way very soon – a recent release by a certain R-Rated individual (there’s a hint for you). I am not feeling particularly typeractive tonight, so… Enjoy!
I had to laugh (or perhaps it should be LOL?) the other day when I was browsing through the News.com.au website and came across this headline – “Justin Bieber’s voice hitting a sour note” – basically an article about how the hottest new pop-star of the music world’s voice is breaking. The first point of the article read “Puberty wreaks havoc on Justin Bieber”. Oh my, I never thought I would live to see the day that the number one national Australian news headline involves a rare phenomena known as puberty! Luckily for his many fans, it looks like Bieber will pull through this turbulent phase in his life.
I must say, despite the many avid (and might I add, extremely vocal) haters he seems to have accrued around the world, I really have no personal dislike for the young man – rather on the contrary, I actually quite like some of his songs… hell, what’s not to like about catchy hooks, top notch production, and the backing of one of the RNB greats – Usher. And besides, can the 200 million odd people that clicked on his “Baby” clip on Youtube really be wrong? Give the kid a break man, chances are he’s already earned more money in his 16 short years than the majority of us will earn in our entire lifetime.
Now, to get to the point of my post – Daniel and I were last weekend discussing the topic of most unlikely remixes that could Jaden do – and surprise surprise (yep, you guessed it), Bieb’s name came up. We thought, why not have a crack at doing Baby – sounds like a bit of fun, and it will almost certainly address a group that is a little left of centre from our usual target demographic.
For anyone not familiar with the process of remixing a track, you basically get a hold of a vocals only (acapella) recording of the track, then build the beat and instrumental components from scratch. As there is no official acapella of the track, we used a version that was electronically ripped out of the original – so my apologies if the vocals sound a little messy – this is just an inherent byproduct of the process (a big thanks to whoever it was that made this .wav available for us to use)!
Gracias for reading, and we hope you enjoy our own interpretation of Justin Bieber’s “Baby”.
PS for anyone wanting the full low-down on the JB voice-breakage, here is the full article
