It’s hard for a die hard Bay Area music aficionado like myself to admit this but L.A has the progressive Black music world on lock right now. With artists such as Anderson Paak, Kamasi Washington, Terrance Martin, Thundercat, Dam Funk, the Stones Throw Records family, Kendrick Lamar and many other artists, Los Angeles is currently creating and innovating sounds that are contemporary, futuristic, and yet have that powerful California funk thump that connect them to West Coast tradition. Georgia Anne Muldrow, through her buoyant jazz influenced singing and her powerful funky production is one of my favorite artists from this scene, and todays “Music for the NEXT 1”, features her on funky futuristic production supporting a new great voice coming out of L.A, Ms. Jimetta Rose! Muldrow provides some powerful funky L.A sunshine cruising music that moves you on the top and bottom as Jimetta’s clear, jazz inflected phrasings motivate you between the bed of the bass and the covers of the high synth lines. Jimetta’s song and Georgia’s music combine for powerful positive vibes.
The song begins with a four bar intro of it’s lusciously funky sunshine groove. The synthesizer bass is a deep snaky tone that shows how much funk can be extracted from three simple notes. The modulating synth bass line most definitely commands a lot of space on the track, playing long sustained note followed by two staccato notes. The drum beat is a phat snared one, two, three, four that marches with a solid stomp, and either a break with no beat or tom tom drums at the turnarounds. On top of that several highly melodic, hard synced lead synth tones are overlain that capture the sunshine lyrics as Jimetta sings in a clear powerful tone with little vibrato or melisma, “Morning dew/makes me think of you/got me shook up on your love/I can’t forget it.” Her vocals seemed to be doubled with one slightly delayed behind the other track. Various keyboard and synthesizer points tastefully dart in and out of supporting roles, as does an acoustic piano sound laying down grand chords. After Jimetta sings the line “I wanna dig your flow”, a James Brown sample humorously comes in to state, “I wanna mingle.” As the track progresses more vocal tracks of Jimetta are introduced, singing loose, improvisational highly pitched lines and supported by the grand piano sound playing sharp strong chords. The song leaves us, floating out on a powerful wave of funk and good vibes.
“Catch a Vibe” was one of my summertime anthems for this past summer and a powerful introduction for Jimetta Rose. It also shines brightly for the production of Georgia Anne Muldrow, who is quickly becoming one of my favorite producers. She lays down a strong funky beat that is also very flexible, and manages to keep a groove going while also adding and subtracting various elements that keep the arrangement spicy. As for Jimetta Rose her voice is of that beautiful, clear, strong modern soul school that includes people like Jill Scott and Ms. Georgia Anne Muldrow herself. It’s a strong vocal sound that eschews melismatic oversouling histrionics for flat out blowing! I definitely “caught a vibe” from this song and plan to catch more vibes with Ms. Jimetta Rose as her career progresses. This either top down crusing, or “spend time with the one your with” funky nu soul music of the highest order and I look forward to more music from Jimetta Rose in the future.
riquespeaks 