not your ordinary

One of the albums of this year will be out any day now: Aloe Blacc's Shine Through (Stones Throw). After having pursued an MC career with rap group Emanon, Aloe made a slight career change to more seriously make use of his rare singing talent, hooked up with hip-hop producer Oh No, and struck a new path as a solo artist.
On "I'm Beautiful" and his much-hyped Spanish version of John Legend's (I need to give credit here also to Jon Lucien ) "Ordinary People", Aloe makes soul music which is, put simply, Larger Than Life.
Then — more interestingly — on the album, he does something which is like an inversion of that, but which comes out as even stronger, on its own merit: Check the official website for the video to negro spiritual "Busking", and realize how this is unaffected, unpretentional music but at the same time as bold a statement as you'd be able to think of these days. Surpassing playa bragadocio and sex-crazed closet-jumping through sheer modesty and soulfulness. Aloe don't need to boast, he be killing them anyway, cos they all children — and he's the daddy.
www.myspace.com/aloeblaccmusic
www.aloeblacc.com

Aloe Blacc: I'm Beautiful
Aloe Blacc: Ordinary People (Spanish version)