Entertaining blog

Jaheim artist. Genre(s): Rap: Hip-Hop; R&B: Soul

Albums:

DJ Finesse – The Best Of Jaheim (Year: 2006) (Tracks: 20)

Ghetto Classics (Year: 2006) (Tracks: 11)

The Best of (New York City Edition) (Year: 2004) (Tracks: 21)

Still Ghetto (Year: 2002) (Tracks: 16)

Ghetto Love (Year: 2001) (Tracks: 21)

Jaheim has some big numbers on his mind.

After selling over 1.5 million copies of his debut album, Ghetto Love, the soulful crooner, who’s not normally prone to making brash predictions, is very optimistic about his follow-up, Ghetto Classics, due November 5.

“I’m trying to sell 10 million on the first day,” said Jaheim, who began the Seagram’s Gin Live 2002 Tour September 16 in Philadelphia. “You heard the last album, that was more of a cry. I was crying for position and fighting for the position I got now.

“The way I feel now, I thank the world for giving me the opportunity and acknowledging me,” he continued. “All I could do is put my heart and my soul into this new album.”

Still Ghetto has much of the Ghetto Love team in place. Kay Gee (Naughty by Nature, Next, Koffee Brown) is again the executive producer, and Eddie F. (Angie Stone, Heavy D), Eddie Berkeley (Next, Luther Vandross), and Eric Williams (Blackstreet) are turning the knobs.

Divine Mill/Warner Bros. executives are keeping copies of Still Ghetto tight to the vest, wary of a repeat of what happened to Ghetto Love. Bootlegging of the debut album became so prevalent in the U.K. that extra tracks were added before Ghetto Love’s March 2001 release.

So far, Warner Bros. has taken the wraps off of only one track from Still Ghetto. The single “Fabulous,” due to radio by October 1, features a minor-key arrangement complimented by a children’s chorus and a high-end percussive treatment.

“Kids are our future … that’s the truth,” said Jaheim, 23. “Some kids need to know that. When you touch them like that and they’re happy and they smile, you got to acknowledge them.”

Kids are attracted to Jah because of his style, which includes baggy jeans, boots and plenty of ice, said Warner Bros. senior publicist Karen Lee. But Lee feels that Jaheim’s appeal can cross over to their parents, thanks to the singer’s R&B loverman passion, which recalls Teddy Pendergrass and Luther Vandross.

“I’m seeing 50-year-old women at Jaheim’s shows,” Lee said. “I’ll never forget seeing this one woman with a cast on her leg who hopped out of her seat and hopped down the aisle to give Jaheim a rose.”

A rose for Jah’s sensitive side.

“He’s a man who opens himself up, and he’s sincere,” said fan Krystal DeVille, 32, of the Bronx, at a recent Jaheim show. “But he has that thug look and hardcore mentality.”

Jaheim artist hot music is currently headlining the Seagram’s Gin Live 2002 Tour with featured acts Truth Hurts (”Addictive”) and hip-hop legend Biz Markie. The outing, which is raising funds for the nonprofit social service group One Hundred Black Men, concludes October 18 in Los Angeles.

The tour gives fans a chance to see the performers in smaller venues as well as the opportunity to watch Jaheim perform with a live, four-piece band for the first time since he became a star. The outing is also Jaheim’s first as a headliner.

The rough-times-to-riches story of Jaheim Hoagland began in the projects of New Brunswick, New Jersey. His father died when he was two and his mother, Julia, died when he was 17. There were times when Jah ran wild while he was growing up, but he eventually found direction in his music.

Jaheim was able to get a tape of his singing into the hands of producer Kay Gee five years ago, and subsequent years were spent polishing Jaheim’s style. The time also was spent recording songs for Ghetto Love, which produced the hit singles “Could It Be,” “Just in Case” and “Anything.”

Now it’s time for Jaheim music, the sequel.

“If you are Jaheim fan, for sure, go out there and get this album the first day it comes out, because it’s going to be hard to get it the second day,” Jaheim said. “It’s going to sell out.“

T-Pain feat. Yung Joc – Buy You A Drank (Shawty Snappin’)
Rapper T-Pain is celebrating after his Buy U A Drank (Shawty Snappin’) was named U.S. radio’s most played song in 2007.
The 22-year-old – real name Faheem Najm – beat out competition from Beyonce Knowles’ Irreplaceable and Fergie’s Big Girls Don’t Cry to top the list, compiled by newspaper USA Today from data supplied by Nielsen BDS, Arbitron and Radio & Records.
Making up 2007’s top five most played songs on the radio are Rihanna’s Umbrella and Carrie Underwood’s Before He Cheats.

Dj Enur feat. Natasha – Calabria

Enur’s Calabria – The Chart Climbing Wonder

Danish dance hit “Calabria” by Enur has lived many lives since it was first created as an all-instrumental club track in 2002.

Copenhagen DJ/producer Rune Reilly Kolsch (aka Rune) quickly scored an Ibiza hit with the bouncy sax-driven hip shaker in 2003. In 2006, Rune’s half-brother Johannes Torpe, with whom he forms the electronic duo Artifical Funk, thought to add vocals by half-Jamaican, half-Danish dancehall singer Natasja Saad. The producers licensed the new version to London label Ministry of Sound under the name Enur (Rune’s name spelled backwards).

Though MOS also released a remake of the song (by DJ Alex Gaudino featuring Crystal Waters), Enur’s “Calabria 2007″ went to No. 29 on the European Hot 100 singles chart and, most recently, made it American shores via New York dance label Ultra Records. “Calabria 2008,” as it is now known, stands at No. 73 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, and has gained support from mainstream and rhythmic top 40, dance and Latin radio. (Indie rapper Pitbull’s current charting single, “The Anthem,” also samples “Calabria.”)

“The whole rhythm aspect has always been the thing that fascinated me the most about producing records,” Rune tells Billboard.com from Denmark. “The reggaeton feel came quite naturally because it’s such a universal rhythm – also with what has been coming out of Jamaica lately, dancehall is moving faster and faster, and it is so easy to incorporate in music.” The one-time hip-hop producer’s MySpace page also reveals he got into electronic work when he was “fed up with blunt smoking lazy rappers that never showed up on time for sessions.”

In a sad twist, featured singer Natasja — whose understatedly sexy patois was gaining recognition on both sides of the Atlantic — died in a car accident in Jamaica last summer.

“She had been working for so many years to try and break through,” says Rune. “It’s even more horrible to think [that] her music has become such a hit now, and she didn’t get to experience that.”

But the song’s house- and dancehall-blending beat goes on, most recently with a re-mix released by Ultra Records featuring New York rapper Mims.

“Apparently it was a big hit in hip-hop clubs in New York for quite a while, which is also kind of weird because it’s kind of uptempo for a hip-hop record,” says Rune.

The Caribbean and soul influences will be prominently featured on the next Enur album. Another album from Artifical Funk is due in 2008; the duo was also handpicked as judges for Scandinavian turntable competition “MTV Selected.”

Rune and Torpe also have their own electronic and house label, Arti Farti, and spend time designing everything from furniture to tableware and accessories in their “spare” time.

As for the success of “Calabria,” “it’s had a quite a lifespan,” Rune says. “It was never planned. That’s the beauty of it. Making hits is easy. Making something truly interesting, that is my goal with all this.”