Library Finds

In the spirit of the digital revolution, I’ve been raiding my local library for CDs for my computer/iPod. I jumped on the bandwagon relatively late, buying my first MP3 player just in February of last year: a classic white, 80-giga iPod. Before my médiathèque excavations, I had about 25G of music. Now I’ve got 33G and counting. Funny what you can find in the English music section of a French library though; here’s a few:

1. Ingrid Chavez, May 19 1992 – If you don’t know already, Ingrid Chavez is the whispery voice billed as the Spirit Child introducing Prince’s Lovesexy album from 1988. According to the Prince biography Possessed, she also hooked him up with the bad Ecstasy that made him decide to shelve his infamously funky The Black Album. It’s been said that Chavez slept with Lenny Kravitz and that he promptly stole her breathy poetry-vocal style (and, uh, lyrics) when producing Madonna’s “Justify My Love.” (Which also featured a jacked beat from Public Enemy, and so what exactly was Kravitz’s contribution to the song then?) Anyway, homegirl put an okay album out in 1991 that nobody bought, and I’ve got my hands on it again now; my CD was too scratched for the PC. Standout track: “Hippy Blood”
   
2. Queen Latifah, All Hail the Queen – Scream all you want about Remy Ma, but this ranks as the all-time best record I’ve ever heard from a female MC, along with Lil’ Kim’s Hard Core and the Lauryn Hill classic. Mark the 45 King produced almost everything here, which makes it strange that he never went on to do much else of note. The sample from Miles Davis’s Tutu for “The Pros” still puts a smile on my face. Standout track: “Mama Gave Birth to the Soul Children” w/De La Soul
   
3. Martina Topley-Bird, Quixotic – Notable because this European version and the American version retitled Anything have different track listings, with three songs left off. Martina, of course, is the British former vocal foil and babymama of triphop god Tricky. She just dropped The Blue God produced by Danger Mouse, but nothing on the new joint stands up to “Need One.” Video below in fact, fuck it. Standout track: “Lullaby”