We Plug to You... Cris Cab - Foreword

So my editor sent this to me and I thought to myself, "what does this preppy looking kid from Miami know about Reggae music?". Still, I downloaded because the Boss knows me well enough to know what songs excite me. My thoughts after listening were exactly this…“He cannot be 18, who writes for him, OMG This boy is amazing, he will surely get it”.

You know what they say about not judging a book by its cover? Well it is the absolute truth - PLEASE do NOT do it guys and I should know this too. I confess I was one of those people who thought Adele was this black soulful singer from the Motor City somewhere and I promised myself once I found that to be the contrary, to never be so judgmental again, but “oops, I did it again”.  Without further ado, I have the ultimate pleasure of plugging to you Cris Cab - 18 year old Cuban singer/songwriter from Miami, Florida and his exceptional recently released debut EP – Foreword.

We Plug to You... Bez - Super Sun

Help! I'm never usually starstruck but here I am completely won over by the voice of this - rightly put - Super Sun!. However, I'll get myself composed enough to put this review together. I got very excited to do the feature on this particular artist and his music and you can probably decipher the reason why as you read on. I have followed this cool gentleman (even virtually so) from his days of small cozy performances at a Jazz/Soul Jam slash Poetry Slam cafe of sorts called Taruwa in Lagos, Nigeria - a brain child of his sister Lydia Idakula-Sobogun - up to his involvement with one of the most popular and gifted Producers in Nigeria, Cobhams Asuquo and his C.A.M.P production outfit and label. We plug to you, one who many have referred to as "Nigeria's John Legend" - velvety Alternative Soul singer/songwriter by the name of BEZ.

We Plug to You... Muhsinah - Gone EP

Independent singer, songwriter, composer and producer Muhsinah - pronounced Mu•see•na - is back after a long break away from the music scene with a brand new fourth EP titled GONE which she recently released on July 20 for her 28th birthday. The Washington DC native has already performed in front of President Obama at his homecoming inaugural ball in 2009 alongside veteran Chicago rapper Common and has also been nominated for a "Best Vocal Performance" Grammy Award for her work with Hip-Hop/Soul duo The Foreign Exchange. You simply cannot categorize Muhsinah into one genre or box as I found out when I listened to Gone. I found it difficult to place her but after listening to her a few time, I came to the following conclusion: her music and production are very much Electronica/Indie/Experimental but her vocals and lyrics are 100% Soul music and it's therefore no surprise that Muhsinah's dexterity and style have attracted many audiences and acknowledgments such as this one from Radiohead's front man, Thom Yorke.

We Plug to You… Kelly Erez - This is Me

The best ones are unsigned… This is my professional and one might add very opinionated position. I have been doing this for about two years now, receiving music daily from people across the globe and this is just what I have found. The music industry as we have it now will be so much better, if we could get a lot of our unsigned artists signed and on the radio. Maybe then radio stations will not have to repeat the same songs every hour on the hour

But I digress... If there is one sect that is particularly lacking in the industry right now, it’s the R&B sector - more precisely the female R&B sector. They seem to have died with the start of the new decade, giving way to only Pop artists and left it all - R&B music I mean - to their male counterparts. In this artist I plug to you today, there is definitely cause to be hopeful, we have a revival on our hands people, “R&B’s back” – said in my best Rick Ross imitation.

We Plug To You... CocknBullKid - Adulthood

I plug to you East-London resident Anita Blay (by way of Hackney); Blay - also known as the unique yet intriguing stage name Cocknbullkid - is a 26-year old UK singer/songwriter of Ghanian heritage who has had a love for music ever since she can remember. Growing up with dreams of one day becoming a pop star, she started writing in her bedroom at age 10 and not before long, got immersed into the industry - writing with rapper-now-turned Soul singer Plan B by the age of 16. Blay went on to release her debut single "On My Own" produced by Joseph Mount (Metronomy) in July of 2008, which landed her a slot on seminal TV show Later With Jools Holland in the same year. With a stream of self-released singles under her belt, she later released an independent EP Querelle in 2009 under the moniker The Cocknbullkid and soon after went off the radar for a while. On her return from a 2-year hiatus, she dropped the pronoun from her name, got signed to major label Island Records and released a very stellar debut album titled Adulthood...