Album of the Month: Wake Up!

This month I have been raving over Wake Up! by John Legend and the Roots. ​​A couple years ago I got into John Legend when I checked out his album Love in the Future. What a guy, I can’t believe it took me this long to get into his stuff. My only exposure to The Roots prior to this album was seeing them on Fallon and the thought of “oh I really need to check them out” that would come to mind fairly frequently. When I saw this album, I could only imagine how rad it would be.

Top 5 moments:
    1)    the band changing keys on C.L. Smooth’s rap on Our Generation - it comes out of nowhere but gets me pumped for when it switches back
    2)    the spoken word prelude by Malik Yusef on Little Ghetto Boy - “And there's a degree, of difficulty to make it from the ghetto boy into the man-hood, especially when you know that yo' fresh greens will help eliminate a canned good, can good and bad co-exist? in a place with plenty of off ramps but no exits”
    3)    the bass line on Hang on in There - so simple but when he goes up high on the second half…dang.
    4)    John Legend singing the word “Love” on the chorus of Humanity - slowly sliding up into the pitch, what a voice
    5)    the groove / changes on I Can’t Write Lefthanded - it stays the same for most of the song but doesn't get old.

I love the overall theme of the album of “Wake Up” - why is there violence? Why can’t we all spread love and have the things we need? Definitely check this album out.  

- Ben

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Some other things I'm pumped about right now:

1) Drew Brees as my quarterback in two Fantasy Football leagues. #sports

2) The show How To Get Away With Murder on ABC. 

3) The app Over: basically a simplified mobile photoshop. It can do quite a bit for $3.99, plus, it is linked directly to Unsplash which I love for stock photos.

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