I'm not a big reality TV watcher like that, in fact I don't watch any of 'em anymore. And I say anymore because I used to partake in my guilty pleasure was VH1's Love & Hip Hop. Now the only problem was that show was by the time I got tired of all of the dumb ish going on I had wifey hooked! So from time to time if I walk in the bedroom & she's watching it, I'll backslide just a 'lil and catch an ep. So last week while we were peeping the new ep of Love & Hip Hop Atlanta this ILL song "Pain" came on and after a quick pandora hit I found out it was some dude named Earl St. Clair. Now the only problem with checking out his new EP "My Name Is Earl" was that Roc Marciano's "Rosebudd's Revenge 2" currently had my rotation on lock but somehow from the grace of God, Earl crept his was into my rotation and I an't gonna hold ya'll... this EP ain't left since!
"My Name s Earl" sets off with "Pain" and has Earl crying out his soul about the pain that he's dealing with over a track that's reminiscent of Alicia Key's "Fallng" which of course is reminiscent of James' "It's A Man's World, "my daddy died before I turned 25, but he left me a little money/I'd much rather have my daddy alive, why did God take him from me/I take a drink in your name every night, but I think it's more for me/and this addiction is so hard to fight but it gets easier with every drink." Three Story House" is Earl's 2018 take on Luther's "A House Is Not A Home" which was '84's take on Dionne Warwicks' OG version from back in '65, "this house ain't no home whenever she gone/these nights can get long/n my three story home, I see I was wrong
I guess I'm not that strong/now I'm all alone, in my three story home." "Criminal" takes the party uptown quick fast and in a hurry and between the piano, the horns and the Funkadelic chant there's absolutely no way you could go wrong with this song. "Bad Love" gives you that Earth Wind & Fire "Groove Tonight" feel and "Feeling Alive" is dope as hell. "Ain't Got It Like That" featuring PJ (nah...not PJ Morton but trust you won't be disappointed with this PJ) has Earl breaking down that "he knows that he's got what he needs, even when he doesn't have what he wants" and "Beautiful War" ends the album on a beautiful note and has Earl speaking on the hell that black folk are dealing with "wounded above ground, in revenge we will drown/murder boys are in doubt, for the beautiful war/let the children go play, it just can't take 'em today/you're decent to stay, for the beautiful war."
I won't hold you, to me one of the million of dopest things about "My Name Is..." is that most of these old school sounding bluesy soul singers types are always good money for there slow tempo songs but they always seem to screw up on the uptempo songs. But not Earl cause I honestly couldn't tell you what's doper, his slow bangers or his uptempo bangers and I don't know if I've ever had the dilemma with any other soul singer before. But guess what? That's a VERY dope problem for Ear to have. And even if you wanted to find something negative to say this album just for the sake of hating...you couldn't. This cat is literally THAT good! And now I gotta sit here and go back and do the knowledge on any and all of Earl's old music which screws up my rotation for the next month since Earl jumped the line on everybody else who had first dibs on getting in my rotation. So what's the moral of the story? Don't have sex with Erica Mena. Nah...I'm just playing. The moral of the story is I guess Love & Hip Hop is at least good for one thing...finding new music.
5 outta 5 mics
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