Mit dem großartigem „Wake Up! Radio“ Mixtape von J. Period, John Legend & The Roots verabschiede ich mich ins Wochenende.
Nach den großartigen J. Period Mixtapes mit Nneka, Q-Tip und K’Naan kommt nun pünktlich zur Grammy Verleihung am Wochenende das „Wake Up! Radio“ Mixtape mit neuen Tracks von John Legend, Black Thought, Q-Tip und Rakim. „Wake Up“, das gemeinsame Album von John Legend und den Roots, ist für fünf Grammys nominiert.
Erst kürzlich hatte ich euch die tolle iTunes Live Session der Roots mit John Legend empfohlen und nun dieses wirklich verdammt gute Mixtape. Runter damit.
Download: J. Period, John Legend & The Roots – „Wake Up! Radio“
Tracklist und Pressinfos nach dem Klick.
New York, NY (February 10 , 2011) – In anticipation of an award-winning evening for John Legend & The Roots“™ WAKE UP! album (nominated for 5 Grammys at Sunday“™s 2011 Grammy Awards), J.Period & Truelements Music are pleased to present WAKE UP! RADIO – a star-studded mixtape collaboration with Columbia Records“™ multi-platinum singing sensation, and the hardest working Late Night band on the planet!
Hosted by The Roots“™ own Black Thought, WAKE UP! RADIO pays tribute to the legacy of soul music that paved the way for WAKE UP! and imagines a world where mainstream radio transmits music with a message. Employing an all-star cast of musical contemporaries (including John Legend & The Roots themselves), J.Period dissects, remixes and rebuilds the original recording sessions from the WAKE UP! album in an unprecedented manner, defying the conventional wisdom of what a „mixtape“ can be“”producing a full-fledged remix album in the process. The result is a treasure trove of powerful new music, produced and remixed exclusively by J.Period for WAKE UP! RADIO.
Scheduled for release today, February 10, 2011 , WAKE UP! RADIO will be offered as a FREE DOWNLOAD in celebration of WAKE UP!“™s 5 Grammy nominations, and will also be available as a Limited Edition gift-bag giveaway at The Roots“™ Grammy Jam on Saturday, February 12 in Los Angeles, CA“”consistently one of the hottest tickets on a weekend overflowing with events. J.Period will also be on hand in Los Angeles to perform at The Grammy Jam, DJing to open up for The Roots“™ headlining performance.
Adding to the historic nature of this mixtape release, J.Period will also release an exclusive Digital 12″ on Tuesday, February 15, featuring a history-making collaboration between John Legend, Black Thought of The Roots, and hip hop luminary, Rakim. The track, entitled „In the Ghetto (Wake Up!)“, produced by J.Period, is an homage to the Eric B. & Rakim classic „In The Ghetto““”which hearkens back to a time when hip hop and social messages went hand in hand.
Additional featured guests on WAKE UP! RADIO include Common, Q-Tip, Late Night host Jimmy Fallon, Nigerian songstress Nneka, Somali sensation K“™NAAN, rising star Blu, Def Poet Mayda Del Valle and more, in addition to never-before-heard music from Black Thought and John Legend. Also look out for J.Period“™s history-making „Our Generation“ Remix, reuniting hip hop legends Pete Rock & CL Smooth, which was originally released online in November, and is also featured on WAKE UP! RADIO.
„When this project began, I was excited to explore the legacy of soul music behind the WAKE UP! album,“ explains J.Period, „but I had no idea of the level of access and creative freedom I would be granted by John Legend & The Roots to tell that story. The result is not only something that traces musical history lines from artists like Marvin Gaye to contemporaries like John Legend“”but something that adds to that history: brand new collaborative tracks as if Marvin & John recorded together. It“™s simply unprecedented on a mixtape. And I am particularly proud of the fact that all of it speaks to the true power of music to carry a message, and have a positive impact on society, and on people“™s lives.“
„These songs [are] so relevant now,“ says John Legend. „On most of them, you wouldn“™t change a lyric [from the original version.] The passionate election [in 2008] represented change and hope, and awakened a new generation of activists who had never been inspired before. [Fast forward to today:] the intense brew of possibility [and] poverty, optimism and despair, activism and unrest, global connectedness and intractable global conflicts is the reason WAKE UP! exists.“
Available today, WAKE UP! RADIO celebrates the powerful impact of John Legend & The Roots“™ WAKE UP! album (Columbia Records), and calls on listeners who haven“™t heard the Grammy-nominated album to do so now. For more information about John Legend and WAKE UP! please visit: http://www.johnlegend.com