R.I.P. Teena Marie

Some of you will remember Boxing Day 2010 as the day you exchanged your mother-in-law's Christmas present for something you really wanted. Others will remember it as the day that Christmas hangover made you swear off Egg Nog for good.

For me, it will be the day I heard that the first lady of blue-eyed soul, the uniquely inimitable Lady T, the self-titled Ivory Queen of Soul, Teena Marie, left us at the tender age of 54.

You might be thinking that you can't place her name, and wonder how important a figure she could have been.

Well, just to show that I am not jumping gratuitously on some bereavement bandwagon, I refer to my own blog from earlier this year, entitled Blue-eyed Soul. http://www.metronews.ca/toronto/blog/post/514966

Teena Marie was one of those "musician's musicians". The kind that always earned the respect of her peers.

We've all heard stories of black artists in the 50s and 60s, whose album covers contained something other than their pictures, in an attempt to obscure the artists' ethnicity.

Well, Teena once told the press that Berry Gordy used the concept in reverse for her, "because the songs were so soulful that Gordy wanted to give the music an opportunity to stand on its own merit, and not just because it was a white woman. "

Teena's first album cover, Wild and Peaceful, contained instead of her photo, a portrait of a seascape.

Marie further stated, "So by the time my second album came out people were like, "Lady T is White? Omigod?" Overall, my race hasn't been a problem. I'm a Black artist with White skin. At the end of the day you have to sing what's in your own soul."

Amen sister. Therein lies her legacy.

Born Mary Christine Brockert, Teena Marie, or Lady T, was a protégée (and lover) of funk legend Rick James. She played rhythm guitar, keyboards and some percussion. She also wrote, sang and arranged virtually all of her own material.

Apparently, her strong African-American influence came from her godmother and upbringing in a well-known enclave of west L.A. called Venice. She was strongly influenced by Motown in those days, so imagine her excitement when in the late 70s, that very label signed her.

It was there that she met everyone she needed to know, including the aforementioned Rick James who took her "under his wing" so to speak.

Marie was quickly embraced by African American fans as evidenced by her first top-ten R&B hit, I'm Just a Sucker for Your Love, the first of several duets with Rick James, which went to #8 on the Black Singles Chart. In fact, everyone thought she was a black woman until she performed the song with James on Soul Train in 1979. It seemed appropriate since most people also thought Rick James was a black woman.

In 1980, her second album, Lady T, had her portrait on the cover.

Teena once said of her success, "I think it's because of the way I was raised. I just embraced the sound that I loved, and I think that people can feel the genuineness and the purity of Teena Marie. And it's really, really who I am."

Teena Marie left Motown in 1982, and didn't just sue the label, but launched the legal battle that led to a law, "The Brockert Initiative", preventing record labels from holding artists without releasing any of their music, something Motown had been notorious for since it's inception.

So this artist, whose name some of you barely remember, actually had significant historical impact on the music business.

Then, in the 90s, when her new music wasn't charting, a whole slew of young rappers discovered, and started sampling her old material.

As a matter of fact, Marie is regarded as a pioneer in bringing hip-hop to the mainstream by becoming one of the first artists of her time to rap on one of her singles, Square Biz (and if the song sounds familiar, check out 90s rap supergroup The Firm's title track, Firm Biz).

In 2004, Teena Marie's comeback album La Dona was put out on Cash Money Records (a predominantly Rap label), and earned her a Grammy nomination in 2005.

Here are a few other tidbits of which you may not be aware:

• As a child, Teena had an acting role on The Beverly Hillbillies, where she plays a tap-dancing kid whose mother is trying to break in to showbiz. (You can find it on YouTube)
  
• When she was 10, she sang at the wedding of Jerry Lewis' son.
  
• Her hit song, Behind The Groove, can be heard on the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.
  
• In 1996, the Fugees honoured her by introducing the chorus of her 1988 hit, Ooo, La, La, La, into their song, Fu-Gee-La (some of you are singing it right now).
  
• Her beautiful ballad, Too Many Colors is dedicated to, and features her goddaughter, 7 year-old Maya Rudolph, of SNL and movies.
  
• Lenny Kravitz says that Teena took him into her home, and helped him when he was struggling early in his career.
  
• Her daughter is also a singer under the name Rose LeBeau (who's french grammatical syntax skills are now highly suspect).

It's been reported that Teena Marie died after suffering a seizure. The cause of that seizure is a mystery. As mysterious as how the tireless pursuit of one's own artistic desires can touch so many, without us even knowing.

She was 54 years old.

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Top 10 of 2010

Have you ever been asked the question, "Do you like music?". I've asked it myself, and immediately felt foolish. What if the person said, "No".

Would your next question be "Do you like food?"? How about sleep?

Seriously, do you prefer warmth and sunshine to a freezing hail-blizzard?. Would you rather have sex or be zapped in the groin with a tazer?

The only question that makes sense is "What KIND of music do you like?"

We may all have our own distinct taste but there are hunters and gatherers, while the rest of us eat what we are fed.

This bothers some people. Not me. I don't fight it. I take what comes with open ears, and sometimes I connect, and on rare occasions, I hate it (cough,Yoko,cough).

We've all read those cutting edge, sanctimonious magazines. The ones that tell you that once anyone wearing a suit has heard of it, it's unoriginal and uncool. Up-to-the-minute indie music rags scoff when you catch wind of something they knew about 2 years ago (and you all know at least 1 @#$%*! like that).

Take for example, an article from earlier this year in Prefix magazine. The author criticizes Rolling Stone for no longer being in touch with that ol' rebel music scene. Here is what they say:

"Most publications have already submitted their picks for the most promising artists of 2010, but here comes Rolling Stone, huffing and puffing up the hill with some late choices even though we’re already well into March. Unsurprisingly, the ailing music mag has picked some bizarre and mostly off-the-pulse acts. Titus Andronicus has already been around for five years, but that’s not stopping Rolling Stone from calling them a “new” band, and Grace Potter and the Nocturnals actually released their debut album back in 2004. As such, it’s difficult to see what criteria Rolling Stone used to define a “new” band here."

Can't you just hear the self-importance in his voice? Can you see his eyes rolling arrogantly about his head?

In Rolling Stone's defense, it may be more of a misnomer than an oversight. Let's try an experiment. How many of you have heard of those bands? (pause)...................... 'nuff said.

You see, new bands are only ever heard by an infinitesimal fraction of the population when they're new. The internet has made distribution a million times faster than it used to be, but people still need time to process.

Top 40 radio, by quantitative title alone, can't be inclusive enough to capture even a tiny percentage of the music being released today.
Outkast wasn't new when they released Hey Ya, but it was then that everyone took notice. Cee-lo wasn't new when he released F**k You this year, but now he even cracked an episode of GLEE. (and sung by Gwyneth P, it was hot!)

As a matter of fact, the Grammy nominees for "Best New Artist" every year are followed by a continent-wide chorus of people in all age groups collectively saying "WHO???".

So if 2010 was the year by which you remember the artist, then to you, that's when it is new.

Now, if you just discovered Tupac, you might be a little late to the party, but for the rest of us, here is a list of the artists that will be remembered to have emerged, or reached prominence in 2010:

Bruno Mars: (pictured above) Already the anonymous voice on the year's biggest songs, B.o.B.'s Nothing on You, and Travie McCoy's Billionaire, his solo release of Just the Way You Are is looking to eclipse them both.

Drake: 2010 was definitely his year, and there are no signs that he will be slowing down. It's not just hype either. Toronto boy's got chops and seems genuinely committed to extensive collaboration with....everybody. Let's see how he evolves.

Esmee Denters: (right) In 2009 she released her debut studio album, Outta Here, produced by a guy named Justin Timberlake, on which Denters co-wrote every song. With a unique name, great voice, and fabulous look, she's perfectly poised to be the next big thing. If you didn't know, now ya know.

Florence & The Machine: Florence Welch's debut album, Lungs, was released in July 2009, was on the charts for 28 weeks before finally hitting #1 in the U.K. in January 2010. The band performed at the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards and the 2010 Nobel Peace Price Concert, and was recently nominated for Best New Artist at the 53rd Grammy Awards. There will be no stopping "The Machine"!

Janelle Monae: The magnitude of Tightrope makes it look like she's a one-hit wonder who came out of nowhere, but she has been around for a few years now, and may be the best all-around artist on this list. You would have seen her perform with Outkast's Big Boi in the movie Idlewild, except you didn't see the movie Idlewild (nobody did). She was introduced to P.Diddy and is now considered the queen of Afrofuturistic Funk (?). Whatever. She's awesome, and beautiful, and always fully dressed and dignified. Check her out, and feel free to comment.

Jason Derulo: His birth name is Desrouleaux, but he changed the spelling to make it easy on dumb people. He has been performing since the age of five, and spent his childhood studying opera, theater, and ballet. He attended Dillard Center for the Arts in Fort Lauderdale, and graduated from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York. So he's not just your run of the mill R&B singer. Before I knew that, I thought he was just another pop artist whose songs wouldn't leave my @#%$*! head.

Justin Beiber: Did you think I would omit him simply because it was so obvious. His debut single, One Time, charted in over 10 countries. He is the first artist to have 7 Billboard hits from a debut album. He sells out everywhere he goes, and rarely gets grounded for going out on a school night. To some, he is just another flash-in-the-pan pop idol, but to those in the know, he is a talented kid with every opportunity to enjoy a long career, as long as he never gets caught doing bong hits with Miley Cyrus. In a couple of years, he'll grow some facial hair and tattoo a couple of chinese symbols on his neck, which he thinks mean "badass", but really mean, "I'll have the kung pao chicken", and the transformation from teen idol to rockstar will be complete. Until then, keep him away from your daughters.

Kesha: She's like Britney Spears after the loss of her virginity, but don't sleep on this seemingly crazy party chick. At 18, she sang background vocals for Paris Hilton's single, Nothing in This World, but surprisingly, that did not propel her to instant stardom (go figure). She was almost signed by Kara DioGuardi, but it wasn't until accidentally walking into the studio as Flo Rida was recording Right Round that she got her break. She refused to appear in the video because she knew 'Rida would want her to gratuitously shake her booty, and her principles told her to do that only for her own videos. She was pop diva royalty in 2010 alongside Katy Perry and Gaga, and she will be sticking around for a while, so remember this as the year of Kesha.

Mumford & Sons: Not only are they not Mumford's "sons", but they sound like a band you would hear at a Newfoundland corn festival. I wish I could get that damned Little Lion Man song out of my head, but I can't. Now, Ray Davies (The Kinks) has announced that they will be appearing on his forthcoming collaborations album, which begs the question, "Is Ray Davies still around?".

There were actually so many artists that emerged this year including Mike Posner, Taio Cruz, Nicki Minaj, B.o.B., etc., and there's nothing stopping you from doing some Christmas shopping on iTunes to compile your own version of this year's greatest hits.

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Happy holidays!