Underrated Artist of 2012

   The year is almost about to end usually at the end of year we reflect on what has gone down. This year we have been seen a lot of great work from artists such as Frank Ocean, Miguel, Lupe Fiasco, Ab-Soul, Kendrick Lamar, Sean Price, Nas, and Ryan Leslie. Those artists are getting the love that they deserve this year they all put out incredible pieces of work, but I wanted to talk about an artist that I believed that got slept on. Now I’m not going to lie to you I also slept on this artist as well I came to the party late.


 JMSN

   The underrated artist of 2012 is Christian Berishaj aka JMSN who at the beginning of the year released his debut album Priscilla. I came across JMSN couple of months ago when Game released his playlist for his album Jesus Piece I was looking at the guest features I knew everybody expect JMSN. So I Google JMSN and he comes up on djbooth.net and his album is carrying a 4.5 rating from listeners. After reading the reviews on the site I began to listen to the album and I was blown away and the album has stayed on my rotation since that was two months ago.

     Now his music is very unique it has a blend of neo-soul, R&B and Trip Hop there has been some comparison to The Weeknd which is easy to assume because their music is “Dark R&B”. If you had to make a comparison it would be a mixture of Frank Ocean, Justin Timberlake, and The Weeknd. JMSN produced and wrote the entire album by himself and early this week announced that he is working on his next album the Blue Album and he is doing a collaborative album with Ab-Soul. Next year is looking like a big year for JMSN whose stock will continue to rise. Like the listeners on djbooth I’m giving the album a 4.5 as well only blemish on the album was the guest feature Boldy James who just came off lazy on “Girl I use to know”.

 Favorite Tracks

 “Do U remember the time”
 “Runaway”
 “Love & Pain” 

For more information on JMSN check out his Twitter and Tumblr page
https://twitter.com/iamjmsn
http://iamjmsn.tumblr.com/
 Debut album available on Itunes and Amazon
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/priscilla/id498021920
https://amzn.com/B0073WMRCM

The Music Game......

In 2011 music digital downloads out sold physical CD copy for the first time ever. Gone are the days where everybody was selling platinum albums now selling 500k is going platinum and selling a million is doing double platinum. So who's to blame for music not selling as well? Who’s to blame for album getting leaked? So who's to blame for artist not getting any visible notice once there's album is out?

Well folks I don't have the answers to those question but I can tell you when it started for me, six years ago Lupe Fiasco dropped the critically acclaimed Food and Liquor his album was leaked and let me tell you this his leaked album was better than his released album which they had to re-do because of the leaked album, but their were a couple of songs that I wish that I would of seen on his official release. The album still got great reviews imagine if his album didn't get leaked at all. Food and Liquor was the first album I got on bootlegged and I felt bad for it, so bad that I went out and bought the album and every other Lupe album except Lasers (That’s another story for another day). With the growth of the internet and technology getting albums is very easy to do I’ll admit after the Food and Liquor album I continue to bootleg because it was easy to do and you’ll get it before the release. Now if I came across an album that I liked and it was really good I will go out and buy the album sometimes two copies and give them to some friends. This year I've listen to a lot of great work that I've gone out and buy Channel Orange, Welcome to Our House, Kaleidoscope Dream, Les is More, This Generation, Life is Good, and Food and Liquor II. The music game is messed up it’s now about singles and ringtones don’t be surprise if artists start selling music on their own personal apps with their tracks and music videos.

Throwback Thursday

Lloyd Banks first single “On Fire” from his debut album Hunger For More the single peaked at 8 on the US Billboard Hot 100 and Number 2 on the US Rap Songs.

Throwback Thursday

She at the time was ahead of her time to this day no one is doing what she did back in 1998. Her album was regarded as one of the greatest album of all time by Rolling Stone Magazine, and she was one third of The Fugees. For our Throwback Thursday jam is Lauryn Hill Doo-Woop (That Thing) her first single from her debut album The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. The single went on to peak at number 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.




Lauryn please come back we miss you and we need you.

Throwback Thursday

I know it’s been awhile since we done a Throwback Thursday and we apologize to our reader’s for the lack of writing. But after a little break we are back now for this Throwback Thursday I was driving to work and I randomly picked this artist and listen to the entire album and it jammed all the way through it’s just a shame he should be at a higher point in his career. The throwback Thursday jam is Bobby Valentino Slow down, the song came out March 8th 2005 peaked number 1 on U.S. Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs and peaked number 8 on U.S. Billboard Hot 100 the single went on to do Gold.

The Extinction of English Managers

By Saaceybill

As a football fan and a proud Englishman, I worry that England are not producing quality managers. Compare to their counterparts like Scotland who have managers such as David Moyes, Paul Lambert and Craig Levien. While Wales have Chris Coleman and the late Gary Speed (rip). And than you have Northern Ireland who have Martin O’Neil and Brendan Rodgers who has done wonders with Swansea this season. All throughout football world young managers are being developed; Mourinho from Portugal was a fine example who worked under Bobby Robson, moving on to Pep Guardiola and Andre Villas Boas who at young ages have won trophies in their short career. England have some fine managers, but not many being tested at the top level of domestic football, never mind European football, managers like Lee Clark! Where Scotland have David Moyes & Paul Lambert they are playing top teams week in week out and gaining valuable experience and the likes of AvB are playing amongst the best Europe has to offer.

Where as the best of English are stuck in lower league (no disrespect meant) gaining little experience on world football. So that makes me wonder, with our managers years behind their foreign counterparts and our league heavily depending on foreign imports (players and managers) will our international game ever reach the levels of, for example the current Spain side, or those of Brazil and France when they dominated world football? When you look at the English Premier League 'The Best League In The World' there are only 3 club teams with English managers, Harry Redknapp (Tottenham) Alan Pardew (Newcastle) and Roy Hodgson (WBA) and collectively those 3 have won an FA Cup, an Inter Toto Cup, a handful of domestic promotions, 2 Swedish Titles & Danish Title. Which you can't compare to the likes of AvB & Pep Guardiola. I don't think it's too much to ask for to have a young English manager doing what those two are doing in football; after all we are home to the best league in the world and we did invent the game. So with that being said, who is the best young up and coming English manager? Lee Clark? Aidy Boothroyd? Would you include Mowbray and Pardew in this list? They're both in their 50’s compared to Redknapp and Hodgson who are in their mid 60's. I feel it's time to step the likes of Lee Clark up to a higher league, see what he can do! Our golden generation of managers has passed us by, Glenn Hoddle, Terry Venables, Sir Bobby Robson, and Graham Taylor! It's now time to rebuild a new era, so we don't have to rely on mediocre managers like Roy Hodgson, Sam Allardyce and Steve Bruce for the future of our national team! We don't want to have to go through another Steve McClaren incident do we?!

Who Got Next: Munqs

Corey W. Lawson aka Munqs who hails from Minneapolis, Minnesota is the latest artist to feature on the Who Got Next segment. We catch up with Munqs about his plans for 2012 and a message for new listeners to his music.

SBG: How long have you been in the music game?
Munqs: I have been writing and performing music since the age of seven. I played in various bands that never went anywhere either due to conflicting goals or egos or just plain silliness.
I had taken a step back from seriously perusing music for a few years. I would write and record songs in my bedroom as a method of passing the time, but never really put any weight into it. I always felt like I wasn't ready, or the songs were not good enough, or any number of varying cop-outs.

The first Munqs release, Trial and Era, was a selection of those recordings that I had been sitting on until a close friend of mine passed away. The realization that my time on this planet was finite motivated me to put up or shut up, as it were. I only have so much time, and I don't want it to be spent thinking "what if?"

In retrospect the release is kind of buckshot - all over the place - but it's a pretty illustrated example of an artist trying to find a unique voice, for better or worse, and I think that's something to be proud of.



SBG: Favorite Artist you have worked with?
Munqs: My friend since Kindergarten, hip-hop artist Xavier Marquis, has been a major positive influence for me.
Elements of his production style have definitely become useful when I try to do things outside of my comfort zone.

I play with Xavier's live band, and borrow a few members for the live Munqs sets, bassist Josh Ackerley and drummer David Sellner. I found my keyboardist, Efren Maldonado, on Craigslist.

For the live sets, these guys have become invaluable to me and as time goes on, I hope to also get them involved in the recording process.

Xavier and I are also taking our time with a collaborative project called Happy Kids (our kindergarten teacher's name was Mrs. Happy).


SBG: Which artist has influenced your music the most?

Munqs: As far as influences go, they can vary quite a bit. From Otis Redding, Al Green, and Bill Withers to Radiohead, T.V. On The Radio, and Mike Snow. I can't say one really stands out above the rest. I like Soul, melody and dissonance.


SBG: What can your fans expect from you this year?

Munqs: I'm currently writing material for a new ep due out in April of 2012. The sounds are a bit more cohesive, and closer to the elements of TVOTR and Little Dragon.

SBG: What do you want to tell people that haven’t listen to your music before?

Munqs: I'm always going to be trying to figure myself out as a human and an artist. My music is a reflection of that.


More information about Munqs
www.munqs.com
Twitter:@munqsmusic
www.facebook.com/munqs
Be sure to cop the EP on his website as well. Do it like right now!!! You won’t be disappointed
Favorite Tracks
Banging on Aluminum
Weighs on the Mind
Deal with It