Eddie Rockerz VibeZ

  My resistance is getting weaker I cant stand the pressure I cant get any weaker I’ve got to find some other treasure I need nothing to be a man Because I was born a man And I deserve the rights to live Like any other man   My mind in such a state Sometimes it makes me sick Sometimes I try to hate But I just don’t know the trick I need nothing to be a man Because I was born a man And I deserve the rights to live Like any other man   Experience costs you wisdom Thank God I got some let I’m getting out for certain My soul can stand the test I need nothing to be a man Because I was born a man And I deserve the rights to live Like any other man  

Taj Weekes & Adowa are back with that burning bush of wisdom & melody! From their first album, Hope & Doubt to Deidem (shortlisted for a Grammy) to now their sixth studio album, To All My Relations, Taj Weekes & Adowa continue to roll on their mission to elevate us through the conscious vibes they deliver. Staying true to the essence of Roots reggae which is really an intersection where the spiritual, poetical & political meld, To All My Relations delivers a mighty blow to a Babylonian system that seems to be unsteady & gasping its last breath, The topics they cover range from police brutality (“41 Shots”) to political misleadership (“Terror Is Him”, “Insecurities”, “Son Of a Bitch”) to resistance & hope (“You & I”,”Standing Rock”, “Vibe Up”, “One Little Spark”, “What Do You Believe In”), but the golden thread that weaves this work ...

Thirty tracks from a singer whose records are too honest for gospel radio and too devout for R&B radio — which is exactly what makes them interesting. Christon Gray Christon Gray came out of the Christian hip-hop and R&B world — he is a member of the collective W.L.A.K. alongside Alex Faith , Swoope and Dre Murray , and he appears on records by Tedashii and Da' T.R.U.T.H. — and he has spent his career testing how far that world will let an artist go. The answer, on the evidence of this playlist, is fairly far. His records deal with marriage, infidelity, doubt, money and reputation in explicit terms, set to production that owes far more to D'Angelo and Maxwell than to contemporary worship music. The result sits in a genuine no-man's-land, and it is considerably better than most of the music on either side of it. His voice is the other reason to pay attention: a light, flexible instrument with real gospel training behind it, used with unusual res...

Forty tracks from an Atlanta singer whose entire style is built on saying less than he could — and a guest list that proves how much people wanted him. 6LACK Ricardo Valdez Valentine spent years signed to a bad contract before anything of his reached the public, which is worth knowing because it explains the tone of everything he has since recorded. His records are cautious, withholding and slightly weary, and that is not a pose. He belongs to the LVRN collective in Atlanta — the same circle as Summer Walker and, at a slight remove, Mereba and DRAM — and his breakthrough was almost entirely driven by streaming rather than by radio, which shaped the sound: quiet, close, low-mixed, built for headphones. What he does better than almost anyone is the guest verse. More than half of this playlist is features, and the reason is that he makes other people's records better by lowering their temperature. What to listen for "Ex Calling" and "Prblms...

Twelve tracks from a mixtape that turned a self-taught Atlanta singer with a few hundred followers into one of the most-streamed artists in R&B within a year. Summer Walker: Last Day of Summer (2018) Summer Walker is the clearest example of what the streaming era actually changed. She was working as a house cleaner in Atlanta, posting acoustic guitar covers online, with no industry connection at all. Last Day of Summer , released through LVRN in 2018, was a mixtape recorded quickly and with very little apparatus. It made her a star. What it captures is a specific quality her later, bigger records partly smoothed away: the roughness. Her voice on this tape is small, close and slightly unsteady, the production is minimal, and the writing is unguarded in a way that felt like eavesdropping rather than performance. She has since been open about her discomfort with fame, and hearing this tape it is easy to understand why — the appeal was always intimacy, and ...

Sixteen tracks from a Miami singer who built a career on breath, restraint and an almost total refusal to raise her voice. Sabrina Claudio Sabrina Claudio emerged from Miami with a sound that was unusually complete from the start: sparse, reverb-heavy production, Spanish-guitar textures, and a vocal approach built on breath rather than power. She sings almost everything just above a whisper, and layers her own harmonies rather than pushing a single lead line. It is a genuinely distinctive approach and it works because the writing is patient enough to support it. Her songs do not build to anything; they establish a mood and then explore it, which is closer to how ambient music works than to how R&B usually does. Her Cuban and Puerto Rican background shows up in the arrangements rather than the language — the guitar figures and the percussion carry it. What to listen for "Confidently Lost" aside, "Belong to You" is the record most people fin...

Born into a family of musicians (now performing as  Peace Industry Music Group )  Victory Boyd  started singing at the age of four. Now almost 20 years later, the young artist writes/plays/sings with the sagacious nuance of an old soul, effortlessly blending folk, jazz, classical, gospel and soul. While dreamy, lithe and colored with youthful optimism, her voice also bears the weight of experience. The resulting project aims to motivate and inspire with profound storytelling, artful metaphors and lyrical affirmations infused with hope, rather than starry-eyed naiveté. Album opener “Against the Wind” possesses a quiet beauty that belies a fiercely empowering message, providing a perfect segue to the uplifting anthem, “Open Your Eyes.” Another highlight is “Don’t You Ever,” a heartwarming ditty about faith and love featuring her siblings  Abraham Boyd  and  Angel Boyd  (the trio is collecti...

Forty-four tracks with a title that admits the brief: a bit of this, a bit of that. In practice it is the most musically curious volume in the series. ChilledSoul 12 The disclaimer in the title is a little misleading. This is not a grab-bag; it is a set that deliberately reaches outside R&B into contemporary jazz, British pop, Hawaiian soul and hip-hop instrumentals, and the through-line is a preference for real players over programming. More than any other volume, this one rewards reading the credits. Several tracks here are by musicians rather than by artists in the marketing sense, and they are the best things on it. What to listen for Makaya McCraven's "Black Lion" is the most significant inclusion — a Chicago drummer and producer whose method involves recording live improvisation and then editing it like hip-hop, with Brandee Younger on harp and Joel Ross on vibraphone. It is jazz made by someone who grew up on J Dilla. Trevor Lawrence Jr.'s...

Fifty-six records for one specific room, sequenced with a frankness that most quiet-storm sets avoid. / Cloud 9: The Bedroom Suite Mix There are two kinds of late-night playlist: the kind that is about atmosphere, and the kind that is about what the atmosphere is for. This is emphatically the second, and it is better for being honest about it — there is no pretence that this is dinner music. What makes it work across fifty-six tracks is range. It moves between seventies soul, nineties R&B, smooth jazz instrumentals and contemporary bedroom production, and it never stays in one decade long enough to become a nostalgia exercise. What to listen for The Art Of Noise's "Moments In Love" is the most surprising and most inspired inclusion — a 1983 British art-pop instrumental built from samplers and studio experiment, which became one of the most reliable slow-jam records ever made. Nobody involved in making it intended that. The Isley Brothers' ...

Twenty-eight tracks from an El Paso teenager who became, almost accidentally, the defining pop-R&B voice of the late 2010s. Khalid Khalid Robinson was still in high school in El Paso when "Location" started spreading, and the speed of what followed is genuinely unusual: within two years he was on records with Calvin Harris, Billie Eilish, Disclosure and half the American charts. The reason is the voice. It is warm, slightly hoarse, and sits in a low, conversational register that almost never strains — which makes it unusually easy to place next to anyone. He is a superb collaborator precisely because he does not compete with whoever else is on the track. The other reason is the subject matter. American Teen is one of very few R&B albums genuinely about being young: phones, cars, curfews, group chats, moving town. He wrote about adolescence while he was in it, which is harder than it sounds. What to listen for "Location" is the one...