T-LOVE / “Oh-So Suite”

08 Oh-So Suite.mp3 (12.63 MB)

Well, I am different to the average rapper. I do it cos I love it. I have been working in the business since before I made my first record. I have a job. I have my own label. I don’t just do this for money, but obviously doing it I want to get paid. You do work, you gotta get paid, right?
T-Love

T-Love. Taura Taylor-Mendoza been rapping for over twenty years. The story of a life. Music her goal. And yet… What does one do when one bets everything and loses? Or is there a lost? Was 'rich and famous' the goal? Or was it simply to make a mark? Except outside of L.A. few knew she musically tagged, knew about what she did.
 
She could have been a success in other areas. She sings (some say) better than she raps. So why not sing? Actually she taught herself to sing, studied and practiced so that when she dropped her first full length she would do all the singing.

She was a professional writer. An editor. And as she has grown older what opportunities are there to break into the game as a re-emerging rapper? Indeed, her debut EP (Return of the B−Girl EP,  Pikininny, 1998) was scheduled to be her swan song.

The EP was me saying goodbye. I was ready to hang it up, but my mom, my grandma and [my then producer] Miles all made me promise that I would do one project before I moved on. So we did the EP; and I figured that would be my way to get to some big magazine gig somewhere.
—T-Love

One thing led to another and the end became another beginning. In London, instead of retiring, T-Love started working on The Long Way Back.

People ask me why I moved to London, and I guess I was looking for me. I knew I couldn't find it here – too many people here [in LA] are selfish, lazy, fake and clingy – to the point where they invade your personal space – always taking, but never giving. I was looking for T-Love, or better yet, 'Taura'-Love. I felt I had lost her, she was gone. … Before [London], there was a split creatively and spiritually, and it was ugly. That's what the title is about. It was a long way back to finding me again. As these songs started being recorded for this album, it reflected the span of my creative and spiritual life.
—T-Love

So why start over after you decided to give up? I don’t know. I am speculating on hard questions. I know I like this album. Like the sound of it. The sense of it. What T-Love attempted with it. Even as I acknowledge that there is something I miss in this work.

I spoke with Mtume. He will speak for himself below but what he said struck me, he likes the music a lot, a whole lot but can’t stomach the rapping. Perhaps T-Love should have been a producer.

Many years ago when I was in the army, I played drums. I was a self-taught drumming fool. I spent hours every day practicing. And followed practice sessions with hours jamming with the guys. Playing and playing. Playing. And more playing. And practicing. I was twenty-one. And suddenly music was my life. I still had a camera but rarely spent time in the darkroom. The darkroom where I used to could enter in the morning and not emerge until it was dark outside the room.

I let the camera slide because I was getting good at the music. And I liked it. Won a couple of talent shows on the base. Fort Bliss, El Paso, Texas. And then the gigs came. All kinds of gigs. Mostly R&B and jazz. But occasionally I would sub for someone and play in a rock guitar/bass/drums trio, which was cool except usually the lead guitar was strictly rock and whereas me and the bass player were more flexible; whenever I would try to jump outside the rock box, the guitarist would never follow the bassist and I, and we would end up thudding, one-two-three-four. Eventually, our regular R&B band got a hotel gig. And then I was discharged and decided to go home for a week or so to see my family and then return to the band.

I got to New Orleans and heard the drummers here. Heard Zig of Meters fame, and Smokey “It Ain’t My Fault” Johnson who was Fats Domino’s regular drummer, and heard the mecurical and tempestuous James Black who could beat a drumstick into submission, and, oh, let’s see, David Lee, whom I called Bunsen burner… I heard all these cats and I hung my sticks up. Never went back to my drums. Knew I would never be as good as that, as them. But also knew I could write as well as any of the writers I had met, better than most of them. So, because I wanted to be good at whatever I wanted to do, I focused on writing. I was better at writing than at music. I loved music like a sweet woman you run across one summer time in the park or at a dance. But I married writing.

T-Love has been a music producer. Starting her own label, Pickininny Records. Has been a professional writer, served as an editor at The Source magazine for a minute. Came up out of California. La-la land. South Central. Did the whole local rap scene thing. Her label even put out Jurassic 5’s debut. But from what I understand, successful as she was otherwise, I think she really wanted to be a rapper. Really wants that. I think she is better as a producer and a writer. What’s a B-girl to do?

Do I regret throwing away my sticks? No. But that was my choice. If we consciously make our own choices then there is no need for regrets.

Anyway, I hope that T-Love finds a way to stay active in the music. T-Love is an amazing talent. I believe she knows. Knows that the music she makes is fantastic and that her craft as a rapper never catches up to the brilliance of her production, the depth of her lyrics. What’s a woman tip-toeing through middle age to do?

I know this: I know “Who Smoked Sunshine” is a major statement (not to mention a hard-ass beat). And “Long Way Back” one of the most sensitive portraitures of the absent father ever committed to wax (or should I say committed to silicon, or whatever CDs are made of). What is especially moving is how T-Love starts “Long Way Back” with a little telephone conversation about how she’s busy and won’t be home tonight and the brother at home mumbling OK, or whatever. It’s not like she’s condemning her father even as she is criticizing his absence. Taura understands that she is partially replicating some of her father’s actions. It’s a tough one.

Then there is “Oh-So Suite” with its implication that there are beaucoup changes to go through. From jazz to the boom bap. I’m finding this awesome in conception and almost wizardly in execution. Starts with a Paul Dunbar poem set to music by Oscar Brown, Jr. The version of "Swing Malinda" that starts off "Oh-So Suite" is actually a reprise. The second cut on the album, “Swing Malindy,” is a full length jazz song and includes original verses in French. From the Dunbar opening the suite swings directly into the Hip Hop and that hard-edged tale about how sisters get used: brothers not going to give you the mic unless you give some… original B-girl. Listen. Listen deep. Deeply. This is an original groove.

Actually, T-Love’s album is an autobiography approaching the highest literary order. Which is why I cringed a bit when she said she’s a “Hip Hop Maya Angelou”—Maya Angelou is sincere and popular but not really that deep as a writer. Kalamu what are you saying? I’m saying that if I were picking top writers, I would not put Angelou at the top of my list. I do not mean it as a put down, I mean that if you are going to want to be something, shoot for the top not the middle.

Autobiographical writing has a deep tradition in African-American literature. T-Love is working out of that major tradition. By the end of “Oh-So Suite” she is dropping an ultra-funky beat as she defines herself. I love this. How she has stitched together a hell of a musical quilt.
 
T-Love spent years and years trying to make it in this rap game. Left Los Angeles and lived in London for a minute. Even went over to France. (In fact I first heard her as a vocalist on a French group’s release: The Jazz Liberatorz.) Went on hiatus. Started a family. Took time out from the music game. About four years. And is back now scheduled to drop something this fall (2007).

(Go to her my space page and you can read about it for yourself.)

Waiting for whatever she decides to drop next. Rumored there is a retrospective (Long Way Up: Basement Tapes) and a new joint (Strong Enough). We’ll see.

I could tell you more. Don’t need to. Just listen. And send out some good vibes to T-Love.

T-Love be cool. Watch what you do. Some of us got nothing but love you.

—Kalamu ya Salaam

        It's really a shame        

I know I'm always dropping sports analogies, but here's another one. Terrell Owens (star wide receiver for the Dallas Cowboys) once said his true love was basketball, but in high school, he discovered he was a much better football player than a basketball player. So what did he do? He became a football player.

I'm not saying what T-Love should've or shouldn't have done - everyone has to walk their own path. But listening to these tracks, I hear so much talent wasted. Well, maybe that's too harsh. No, it's definitely too harsh. It's not wasted talent, it's more like mis-applied talent. If T-Love really did do all her own production work and arranging and all, then she's a tremendously talented producer. I would love to hear these exact same songs with a different MC on them. Hell, even as instrumentals I'd listen to them all the time. Of course these songs are very personal, so it's silly to even suggest removing T-Love's words, but as Kalamu alluded to, T-Love is just plain limited as a rapper. She's almost the inverse of these radio idiots who are very skilled in terms of technique, but have nothing to say.

Also, like Kalamu said, T-Love's singing is quite good. Not great, but definitely better than her rapping. Certainly good enough that all of these records would be keepers if she was just singing on them instead of rapping. I've been sitting here listening to T-Love's verses, trying to figure out what's not working. I can't quite put it into words except to say it doesn't sound natural. It sounds a little stilted and hesitant, as if the cadences that she hears in her mind as she writes out her lyrics don't end up coming out of her mouth. She pauses when she should be rapping and she raps when she should be pausing.

 

Part of being a good MC is just working at it - practicing and practicing and practicing some more. Part of it is studying - listening to MCs who are better than you, who came before you, who are around you. Part of it is having something on your mind. It doesn't have to be 'positive.' You just have to have something different or original or interesting to say. It sounds like T-Love has (or has done) all of the above. But the last part is the hardest part because you have no control over it. You just have to be born with that special something. You have to have that verbal dexterity that lets your words sound smooth and fluid instead of choppy and separated. For all the work T-Love has put in, she just can't flow. And it's really a shame, because the songs are so compelling otherwise.

* * *

Damn! It's about an hour later and I've just listened to all these songs again. These song structures and beats are beautiful. It's rare to hear hip-hop that has the really rich, full sound these songs have. It reminds me a little of Pete Rock's style with a little Fugees thrown in. Of course, that one track "Fortress" is straight DJ Premier. If you'd told me Premier produced it, I wouldn't be surprised at all. All the other tracks though have an original, lush feel to them that I really dig. And Kalamu's right about the suite. It's wild that she's just throwing in all those little segments when any of them could stand on its own if they were song-length. On the instrumental side, this is high-quality hip-hop music. I just can't stand the rapping!! Oh well....

—Mtume ya Salaam

P.S. If anybody reads this and knows where to find an instrumental copy of this album, either on vinyl or CD, hit me up at [mtume_s@yahoo.com].

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 27th, 2007 at 12:11 am and is filed under Contemporary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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