So one of the most important R&B writers of the past 15 years dies last week and I don't even hear about it till Tom Brehin's tribute today on the Village Voice Status Aint Hood blog! To al the media outlets that cover music in any way, this is a giant disrespect. This definatively proves how out of touch mainstream media is with urban/black music at this point. You can watch documentaries ad infitum regarding all the writers and musicians from the olden days of the 60s and 70s in black music, but somehow in the 80s, hip hop and music coming from the children of the civil rights movement, scared white people to death and they just simply checked out. They had to go to either cheesy metal or for the intellectuals the muted, castrated, swingless, grooveless sound of the new indie rock. I'm starting to see this turn around with the kids coming up now that define things a lot less by the old race and culture staples that we really still held onto in the 80s. Anyway, Static was the main in house writer for the initial Timbaland (and Jodeci before that camp). He wrote amazingly crass songs about sex and extremely passionate songs about love. He was the heart in Timbaland's machine that is often missing with his music today. Aaliyah's self titled record that came out right before she died (one of the best R&B albums ever made) was almost entirely written by Static. I have often thought with great interest about a man sitting down and writing ten love songs for one girl to sing, so here's some classics and cheers 2 U Static. I'm not going to forget.

the voices of two dead people

pony