Tag Archive for 'Sean Kingston'

Girls I Want To Stick It To - Élan Luz Rivera

The D.E.Y. - you’ve heard of them right? Two bilingual rappers anchored by female vocalist and today’s subject: Élan Luz Rivera? No? How about the tracks they did with Paula DeAnda or Sean Kingston and Juelz Santana? Well, it’s not too late - their LP drops next month, so you still have time to act as if you’ve been up on them for a minute.

A quick screening test: Looks? Yes. Voice? Natch. Down with DipSet? Sweet. Broadway experience? Bonus. Élan has clearly got it going on - but that alone isn’t going to make me crack a fat. In a world of precision-manufactured pop music you need to distinguish yourself or you’re just another cute girl on Entourage.

So, what then does Élan bring to the table? The same thing a recently engaged mutual friend of Nick and mine does: her nose. More specifically, how she wrinkles it.

No joke! The way Élan wrinkles her nose when she sings, high up around the top of the bridge, is the sexiest thing ever. Watch the Sean Kingston video and you’ll see what I mean. It doesn’t even have to be a happy wrinkle! Pouty and angry wrinkles can be sexy too.

Hate your nose? In college, I took an engineering math class called Numerical Methods from a professor named Kenji Shimada. Kenji is big into computer graphics and modeling the human form. One day his lecture went tangent and he tried to explain how math and beauty are related. According to him, mathematical discontinuities make your face unique and interesting. The bridge of your nose is a particular type of discontinuity called a saddle point. Saddle points can be a pain in the ass mathematically speaking (cut to me checking for local extrema in calculus), but without them your face would be two-dimensional and easy to forget - like a kneecap. Your nose adds depth, balance, makes you recognizable, and is unique to you. Think about that the next time you curse your ski slope.

In short: Élan Luz Rivera, your nose puts you head and shoulders above the rest. And yes, I would like to stick it to you.

I (almost) Love (Natasha Bedingfield) Like This

Apparently, I missed a lot of 2007 music videos. Let’s take a minute to discuss Natasha Bedingfield’s Love like this, featuring Sean Kingston. We will consider four criteria: the beat, the video, the content, and the vocals. Ready? Lets go!

The Beat: I like it, plain and simple. The piano plays well off of the backbeat. It won’t win a Grammy for production - but it’s catchy and has replay value. Will you be humming this tomorrow after 4 listens? Possibly.

The Video: Light, breezy, and its got a motorcycle! What is not to like? I think they are even partying in a pool at the end. How cool is that? (I haven’t seen that since Mandy Moore’s breakout Candy)The video suits the song pretty well, so it is pretty hard for me to fault it. Bedingfield looks a lot like Kristen Bell in this video - and I sort of dig that. Our favorite reader Ro noted that the video-guy is “very very hot,” and lastly, could Kingston rock a larger chain? It looks like he has a gilded UPS box around his neck.

The Content: It’s a love song. No deep metaphors, no witty punchlines (even from Kingston), or anything similar. While I like my songs to be witty, this is pop music - not a Common record. No major complaints here.Vocoder Awareness Ribbon

The Vocals: You would think that a video that shoots 3/3 would have no problem making a slam dunk right? WRONG. Natasha, this little pop package was perfect until you had to go and wreck it with a Vocoder. Granted, Bedingfield’s offense is a minor misdemeanor compared to T-Pain’s felonious rapsheet , but it was totally unnecessary.

The Bottom Line? An otherwise very decent pop video is marred by the pervasive Vocoder Virus. If the Vocoder is not a deal breaker for you than this is pretty decent pop music; refreshing considering our last video review.

That’s all I got. Keep it gully.

Podcast Episode 005

The fun never stops as we Spider-Man dat ho with Justique, Neal, and Nick talking up Hurricane Chris, TI, Belanova, Nelly, Sean Kingston, The Darjeeling Limited, Across the Universe, Avatar Book 3 Chapter 6, Casanova #10, Black Panther #31, Messiah CompleX #1, and mucho more.

 
 AudioShocker #5 [52:27m]: Play Now | Download