August 22, 2009

Category: Grooves, Videos

Marsha Ambrosius– Cool Chick, Hot Flo

ma_red

Okay I think it’s high time we stop fronting with these politically correct music critiques. Both the music industry and artists alike are suffering from disingenuously wack music reviews, not to say how this kind of criticism has rendered music journalism damn near irrelevant. So real talk. I know most fans of Floetry have love for both Marsha Ambrosius and Natalie Stewart– The Songstress and The Floacist respectively, but we all know that Marsha was the yummy bubble gum center that we really craved. Like the hard candy exterior, Natalie’s flow was sweet and her words beautiful, but we listened to Floetry to get to that gooey middle. Marsha blew our wigs back and skirts up. On “Say Yes,” she had us wringing out our panties by the last note. Real talk.

Marsha sings like Tiger plays golf. She’s unassuming with a delicate stroke, but when she opens her mouth the lyrics soar from her throat with such precision, force and grace that it’s no wonder everyone from the late, great Michael Jackson to Dr. Dre to Justin Timberlake is shook. She possesses her songs; they don’t possess her.

Last Wednesday night at SOB’s Marsha returned to NYC to a sold-out audience fiending for some more of that tasty nougat. Backed by hip-hop’s supreme team of live bands– The Roots, she sang a number of Floetry classics including Getting Late and Say Yes and a new song about breaking-up called “We’re Done.” Her performance of “Cry,” a song she wrote for MJ’s new album, had eyes misty and hearts longing for the gloved one more than ever. When the Liverpool native sang Butterflies, the song she penned for Michael Jackson it sounded a bit different than his rendition. It moved slower under her spell. The once bubbly ballad of puppy-love that was MJ’s claim to fame was now a full on aching plea for grown folk physical intimacy. Her knowledge of melody and timing cocooned that pop ditty and rebirthed it with goose-bump inducing soul. Real talk. I really cannot wait for her record to drop. Jasmine Sullivan and Crisette Michelle are bringing the noise no doubt, but sometimes you need someone who knows what to do with it once brought. That singer is Marsha Ambrosius.

Here is a Best of Marsha mixtape courtesy of Honey Soul.

Check my video below of her singing “Butterflies” that night. Awesome.

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