It’s hard to argue with decades of success and it’s even more difficult when hundreds show up to witness Mother’s Finest take the stage in a tiny park in the town of Woodstock, GA on a beautiful night on May 12, 2012.

Forever embroiled in funk rock, they are the mack-daddy’s (or mack momma) of the genre capturing the hearts of fans of varied genres and continuously defying anything radio told them they had to play. Tonight was a celebration of all that they had accomplished and they did it in grand fashion.

The evening was full of hits mixed in with other rarities and shared among groves of fans who traveled from miles around wearing Mother’s Finest shirts representing each of the many decades Mother’s Finest has performed up until this amazing night.

The band has learned a lot over the years sharing the stage with acts ranging from The Who, AC/DC, Earth Wind and Fire, Santana and many others. It seems they’ve extracted the best elements of those performances and rolled out something all of their own.

Many who have seen Mother’s Finest perform in the past understood that this was the shortened meaty performance as opposed to the more lengthy that many hardcore fans have come to appreciate in the more off the cuff performances that gave them the cult following they have now.

Considering that it was a free concert, it seemed that Mother’s Finest knew that the audience they were playing to would be a majority mix of “hits” fans with about a 30% blend of the hardcore. That being the case, they catered to literally everyone there in what seemed like a flawless setlist.

Vocalists Joyce “Baby Jean” Kennedy and Glenn “Dc” Murdock were in some of the best vocal shape we’ve heard them perform in a long time blazing through their hits like “Thank You“, ”Truth’ll Set You Free“, ”Mickey’s Monkey” and many others that many never even expected to hear like “Breakin’ Down The Wall“.

Moses Mo ruled the guitar with amazingly smooth solos and screaming riffs that essentially defined the Mother’s Finest sound over the years. And none could argue that the grooves that bass player Wyzard lays as the foundation of their funk is solid as a rock. His fans alone circle the worlds many times over.

Guitarist John Hayes stage presence was hard to ignore as his energy level was off the charts. He bouncd and danced through every tune and Dion Derek held everything together on drums with amazing precision and an unshakable support system.

All in all, the overall feel was unbridaled passion and energy from beginning to end that we haven’t seen in quite some time from the band. We’re sure that the sea of fans had a lot to do with the performance because the energy level was downright palpable.

Of the most unusual aspects is the fact they haven’t released a full album in many years with exception to the live recordings. But for a band who hasn’t pushed out a new album in almost a decade, their fans haven’t missed a beat and it damn sure looks like the band hasn’t either.

All being said, Mother’s Finest is currently on the road and the amount of energy that they have and their live show prowess is unmatched. We have no choice but to give the Mother’s Finest current 2012 tour, a whopping 5 out of 5 afros. Get out and see them. They’re on fire right now and you need to see it.

Check out more photos on our Facebook page here and watch a clip of the show below.

While most artists love for people to record bits and pieces of their shows in order to draw fans to future events and boost album sales, Prince is the exact opposite.  The latest round of shows on his 2012 Australia tour have him attempting to squash would-be cell phone recorders and fans simply aren’t having it as seen here.

One fan was quoted as saying that there are security guards who are actively monitoring the situation and shining flashlights into the faces of people recording any footage with their cell phones.

There are also reports that there are multiple signs everywhere and big brother type announcements indicating that cell phones and recording devices would be confiscated if people were caught recording the show.

This is just the latest attempts of Prince to greatly control what is seen and heard. Only videos and photos that are “Prince-approved” can get distributed.  It began with the vicious Youtube attacks that moved to pull down all unauthorized footage which set off a bevy of complaints from fans. When the witch hunt moved to literally all photos online of the Artist, a lot of fans even chose to jump ship.

“It’s just ridiculous that he acts this way”, said one fan. “It’s our way to support him and help spread the word. We want to share photos and videos that haven’t already been seen a million times. His actions are very diva and make him look unrealistic and out of control.”

Meanwhile, people don’t seem to care about what signs or announcements are made at the concerts and are still recording the shows even amid the threats of confiscation. What do you think?  Is this a tad “out of control”?

If you were a teen in the 80′s, then today is a very sad day. The legendary Adam Yauch, aka MCA of the Beastie Boys has died today losing his battle with cancer at the age of 47.

Adam Yauch discovered a tumor in his salivary gland in 2009 and it was diagnosed as cancer. The treatments led to agitate the illness which caused the Beastie Boys to postpone their tour until Adam could come out the other side.  He didn’t.

He co-founded the legendary hip hop group with Mike “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horowitz back in 1979 where they began as a punk rock band. The trio then moved their focus to rap a few years later which was blossoming at the time, but in the black music realm in the form of Run DMC, LL Cool J, and others.

White guys doing rap was pretty much unheard of as they released their debut album in 1986 entitled Licensed To Ill which gave them instant notoriety and what seemed to be a neverending string of hits including Fight For Your Right, Brass Money, No Sleep Till Brooklyn, and others.

They were quickly labeled as a “marketing stunt” that would be nothing more than a flash in the pan. How wrong they were. The band continued to release groundbreaking albums that all have cult levels of rabid fans including Paul’s Boutique, Check Your Head, Ill Communication and the well received recently released Hot Sauce Committee Part 1.

Adam was also involved in making a lot of the Beastie Boys videos under the name Nathaniel Hornblower and owns a production company called Oscilloscope Laboratories.

Outside of the Beastie Boys, Adam was very involved in the Free Tibet movement as the co-organizer of the Tibetan Freedom Concerts back in the late 90′s and actively spoke at conferences and events to raise awareness of the movement.

His activism, his contributions to music and especially hip hop will forever be missed, but never ever forgotten. Rest in Peace, MCA.

“Now I got the gun you got the brew
You got two choices of what you can do
It’s not a tough decision as you can see
I can blow you away or you can ride with me”

The news for D’Angelo just keeps on coming and it’s very exciting. On top of receiving news of D’Angelo working on a brand new album thanks to our good friend The Roots drummer Questlove (via tweet), D’Angelo decided to take some of the new songs and also past material on the road for some European dates.  Now D’Angelo has added his name to the lineup at the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans on July 6th which will be his first U.S. show in over a decade.

D’Angelo decided that the time was finally right to release the hounds stateside and adds his name to an amazing billing which already includes Trey Songz, Pointer Sisters, Keyshia Cole, Charlie Wilson, just on that Friday night when D’Angelo is performing. The festival runs July 6th through July 8th.

There was also some excitement some months back when he added Jesse Johnson to his European lineup (Morris Day and The Time‘s guitarist) after Jesse walked out on The Time due to their refusal to hit the road and support The Time reunion. So a question on everyone’s mind is whether Jesse Johnson will be a part of the mix at the U.S. appearance.

The other question would be whether or not this signals a U.S. tour for D’Angelo to support the upcoming new album and exactly when that album will see the light of day.

So the only thing left to do is enjoy some of D’Angelo‘s 2012 Eurpoean performance below. Because as far as getting answer to those questions, we’re pretty sure that people have learned by now that it will be on his own schedule. Who’s excited?! If you need tickets, this is where you go.

4/19/2012 Update – 5/26 Brisbane show added.

Even after what should be a successful 2012 Australian Tour announcement, Prince‘s world has been riddled with crappy news.

Whether it was intentional or not, the New York judge overseeing the case against Prince from Revelations Perfume and Cosmetics decided to announce his judgment a mere 24 hours after Prince announced the Australian Tour.  The judgment hit Prince with a whopping $3.95 million settlement against the performer for failing to promote the 3121 perfume after Revelations had spent millions of its own money to promote the product for him. You can read the sordid details here.

That lets Revelations win twice. Once in court to the tune of $4 million and once again with all of the added promotion it’s receiving for suing the very hand that helped create the fragrance and whose name is still associated with the perfume. Because it certainly hasn’t kept Revelations from selling it. Free publicity is a greedy bitch.

Then to add to Prince‘s woes, ticket monopoly Ticketek didn’t plan for the onslaught of ticket sales that caused their systems to crash and burn multiple times when Prince fans decided to buy tickets to the tour down under. Many fans complained that the system failed to process payments or give them tickets at all.

A situation made even worse as the tickets began appearing on Ebay for nearly 10 times their face value which infuriated them even further as it became obvious that ticket resellers had flooded the system and snatched away tickets for nothing more than profit motive. Nothing new there, but a bad PR problem nonetheless. One that they were even forced to address on their Facebook page.

While Prince‘s camp remains tight lipped about the perfume judgment, he did add 2 more shows to the Australian tour dates to help quell the fury. Some even speculate that the added dates were to compensate and help pay for the judgment against him. Either way, Australia now has 7 shows to choose from and whole lot of funkiness going on.

May 11th & May 12th at Allphones Arena in Sydney
May 14th, May 15th and May 30th at Rod Laver Arena in Sydney
May 18th and May 26th at The Entertainment Centre in Brisbane

4/19/2012 Update – May 26th Brisbane show added

After weeks of speculation and even some folks claiming that an Australian tour was just rumor, Prince has finally announced the Australian tour dates. We’re told that the tour will feature a huge full scale arena production including “groundbreaking technology and a complete 360 degree stage”.

May 11th & May 12th at Allphones Arena in Sydney
May 14th, May 15th and May 30th at Rod Laver Arena in Sydney
May 18th and May 26th at The Entertainment Centre in Brisbane

While we’re surprised that he only announced three dates (editors note as of 4/19 – now 7), but there is rumor that more dates could be announced which is why they’re spaced out like they are and that the after-parties are also going to be in full swing. Plus New Zealand is none too happy about being omitted from the tour, so it wouldn’t be surprising to see some NZ shows pop up as well.

If any of our Aussie friends plan to be in attendance, please send photos, videos, and anything you can muster. As for our Prince fans in the land down under, you folks are SO lucky!

You can visit the official tour page here.

For those that picked up the latest offering from Van Hunt, What Were You Hoping For? and were a bit perplexed at the direction he had chosen, you certainly weren’t alone. But on 4-6-2012 at a small venue called The Earl, Van Hunt came to set the record straight.

To set the evening in motion, Van Hunt chose the stylings of Rocco DeLuca who himself has shaken up his fanbase with his new album Drugs ‘N Hymns which was a strange “O Brother Where Art Thou” type of diversion from his previous full band rock albums as Rocco DeLuca and The Burden.

Rocco came out alone in braided pig tails, a guitar, a foot pad for bass drum and a sole shop light that served as the only lighting to create an ambiance of a man cleansing his soul for all to see. He drove through song after song of heartache and redemption and all with his unique voice that is unlike any other in music.

Van saw a kindred spirit in Rocco as two musicians on a neverending search to find something that soothes the savage internal beast. Two musicians who continue to hit glass ceilings, but break through it time after time and recreate themselves with each new release.

After Rocco performed a short set, Van Hunt took the stage with a slim downed band of guitar, upright bass, and of course, Ruthie Price on drums. Van began the evening with a twisted delivery of the Lowest 1 Of My Desires and then progressed through the evening with multiple layers of funk, rock and punk.

Van played through a majority of the tracks from his new album and surprisingly enough, even the newer songs became sing-alongs for the Atlanta crowd which shocked even Van. Very few songs from the new album were left out even if they were only represented in part. Eyes Like Pearls, Watching You Go Crazy Is Driving Me Insane and even A Time Machine Is My New Girlfriend found a home in the encore set.

What was refreshing about this particular show was that Van also threw in a lot of old material including songs from the ill-fated Popular project. The newer songs made much more sense in the live setting and when mixed with older tunes they all seemed perfectly balanced.

The energy of the evening was amazing and consistent. Ruthie Price on drums brought an undeniable and flawless groove through the entire night without showing any signs of wearing out. Her hits were solid and tight and her time keeping was impeccable even amongst the madness of the newer songs. Not to mention her additions to the background vocal tasks which she handled with ease.

A secondary guitar filled out the evening who’s timing and technique were refreshingly accurate. Additionally his solos were nicely structured and flowing which gave Van the ability to focus on rhythms, lyrics and the occasional keyboards that were at his disposal.

The newest addition was an upright bass player. He maintained smooth and slinky riffs throughout the evening although the sound was muddy, which was not his doing, but still made some of the faster tunes harder to distinguish. Even with this handicap, he handled the evening masterfully.

The whole night was perfectly created as Van made sure that he catered to everyone in attendance. No one didn’t get what they came for, including us.

The fans that were there to enjoy his funkier tunes were delivered all of his best including If I Take You Home, Anything To Get Your Attention, and even the encore closing Hot Stage Lights, among others.

The swooning ladies were hand delivered a nice acoustic set as Van flew solo and gave them Dust, Her December, and others including the new beautifully crafted Moving Targets.

Since we’ve seen Van Hunt a few times prior, we are very familiar with his hit and miss shows, but this wasn’t one of them. And it looks like this was a perfectly balanced show that gives everyone what they are expecting.

If Van Hunt comes into your neck of the woods on this tour, it’s a definite must see. We have no choice but to offer up a 5 out of 5 afros for this new tour from Van Hunt and Rocco DeLuca and it would be well worth your hard earned money to see it for yourselves.

Don’t miss the exclusive interview with Van Hunt!

Following an amazing Atlanta concert, Funkatopia’s Mr. Christopher sat down with Van Hunt for a few minutes to discuss the new direction of his music, what you can expect when he comes into your town, and how often you can expect to hear new music.

De La Soul’s Plug 1 and Plug 2 joined forces with French turntablists Chocolate and DJ Khalid to create a thematic album of some of the funkiest grooves this side of the pond in what could be considered their first album since 2004′s Grind Date (not including the “Nike” album).

True De La Soul fans will cry foul since the album does not have Plug 3, but the full De La Soul team is rumored to be joining forces with Prince Paul for their official eighth album tentatively entitled You’re Welcome. But we’re here to talk about First Serve which is out now!

De La Soul’s Plug 1 and Plug 2 present First Serve is an amazingly funky album with great riffs and smooth flowing lyricism with unusually polished shiny edges. De La Soul fans should be exceptionally excited because the end result is a perfect funky slice of heaven laced with great lyrics and storyline.

Their ever present incomparable rhyming skills are still here and the rhymes mix a laid back old school feel sweetened with a storyline of the journey of two friends by the name of Deen Whitter and Jacob ‘Pop Life’ Barrow in a pursuit to land a record deal.

The story follows the duo from creating songs in a Mrs. Whitter’s basement all the way through to their final attainment of success and touches everything in between in the form of 16 very funky tracks. From the struggle for notoriety, getting signed with Goon Time Records, feuds to french hoes, reconciliation and more, it’s all here and woven into a narrated tapestry and capped on both ends with intro and ending credits.

It’s incredibly difficult to pick out any specific stand-out song since all of the tracks are radio-worthy (with some language editing of course), but they all have a solid feel. Chocolate and DJ Khalid have done an exceptional job spending time with the instrumentation to give them a “live and in person” sound. The bass riffs are thick, the drums are snappy, and the overall aura of the album is very East Coast, but many times dabbles in that West Coast top-down cruising summertime groove.

The flow of the songs do an exceptional job of not only leading the story along, but also maintaining the emotions of the storyline. Starting off with a light “no care in the world” of our two dreamers with Pushin’ Aside, Pushin’ Along which we debuted here along with the celebratory We Made It after the team gets signed with Goon Time Records.  Each song lends itself near flawlessly to the emotion of what’s going on.

Only two songs stray from that light funky sway and come off darker than the rest and that’s the “internal beef” section of the storyline that brings out the Chronic-like stabbing piano chords and gruffer lyricism. Those songs are Clash Symphony and Tennis (although the latter is post-beef) and they’re split down the middle with a very breezy cruising tune called Pop Life set in the backdrop of France.

The storyline is narrated from front to back to maintain the continuity and is interwoven with a lot of humorous dialogue between the characters. There’s nothing too “eye rolling” here, but once you’ve absorbed the story, it may be a hard re-listen. The songs could easily stand on their own, but the story is so finely ingrained into the flow of the album, it may be difficult to break singles out of it.

Overall the album is filled with some great funk grooves, head bopping bass line and riffs and essentially the perfect soundtrack for a road trip. We’ve been excited to listen to the finished product ever since we received the first hint of its existence and we were not at all disappointed with the end product

We hope that the marketing really makes sure that De La Soul‘s involvement is out front a tad more forcefully than it has been, because this is a REALLY good effort and it would be a shame for it to get buried because of a lack of notoriety. Although we have a feeling that De La Soul fans will not let that happen anytime soon.

Get the word out. The boys from De La Soul have a new album out now called First Serve and it’s a great adventure. We give it 4 out of 5 afros!

http://wearefirstserve.tumblr.com/
http://www.twitter.com/poplivin

Part 1 – Mrs. Whitter Video

Part 2 – We Made It

Song – Pushin’ Aside, Pushin’ Along

Mixtape – The Goon Time Mixtape
This is NOT on the First Serve album. This was created to simply lend itself to the storyline.

Update April 4th – Sources say that the official announcement will be made on April 12th. yeah, we don’t know why either. Sometimes it snows…. Now back to your regularly scheduled blog post…

While the world wondered when Prince would make another live appearance, it appears that he’s about to finally announce his next shows and they aren’t in the states. Herald Sun reporter, Nui Te Koha dropped a tip to Triple M that the tour will be announced either this week or next. Our guess is on Good Friday, but we’ve been wrong before.

Chugg Entertainent headed up by Michael Chugg will be the promoters of the Australian tour and it seems that there having a difficult time keeping the news at bay.  Tour promoters have been yanked for less in the past, but so far it doesn’t seem to be having an impact on the relationship.

Prince declined to perform at last year’s Big Day Out and they are still reeling from that fiasco. This tour will cover 3 or 4 dates in Australia and will be the first time in 8 years that he’s stepped foot Down Under. We’ll post the dates when they land.