…a unique and magic blend of laid back soul, slow funk, rap, afro-cuban beats, and orchestral jazz. It's some of the most hip, crisp, and sophisticated urban music you'll ever hear. Full of genuine grit, serious musicianship, and poetic, meaningful lyrics it’s taking the street by storm.
Who is Mind & Soul?
www.mindandsoulmusic.com
LIFE (single w/bonus tracks). For Nov. 11 issue hit #20 on Billboard's Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles Sales chart based on brick-and-mortar sales alone. Airplay on commercial radio 107.5 WJZZ (Radio One) in Atlanta in November 2006.
Mind & Soul is both a concept and a movement. It's carried forward by an Atlanta-based coalition of artists and musicians dedicated to creating and promoting a new genre of urban music that bangs and at the same time is of the highest quality and spiritual level in all respects. Most closely related to "conscious" rap and neo-soul, the Mind & Soul philosophy is all about the development of the art form, tapping into the depths of the human soul, and raising the bar on quality of beats, lyrics, musicianship, arranging, melody, and more. Mind & Soul believes that dope beats demand original and rich music and lyrics. In August of 2006, even before it's first release the song "Life" placed as a finalist in American Songwriter Magazine's national "This Craft of Music" songwriting competition - not bad for a hip-hop track at a singer/songwriter magazine. Lot's of other fires are being lit. Expect to hear more and more about this music and movement.
William Forsyth is the visionary founder, composer, arranger, and producer of Mind & Soul. Forsyth has spent a lifetime immersed in philosophy, mysticism, beats, and rich instrumentation of all styles. His influences cover a broad spectrum, from Brahms to Gil Evans, from Miles Davis to Earth Wind & Fire, from Ohio Players to Timbaland, from Quincy Jones to Dr. Dre, from Teddy Pendergrass to Common - and it shows. Forsyth first cut his musical chops as a teenager playing jazz trumpet, composing, arranging, and studying jazz theory. By age 17 his works were being performed in concert and at gigs, and at age 23 his work, Sphinx, was performed in concert by Randy Brecker & Eliane Elias and 23-piece ensemble. Since then he's played jazz gigs, composed, arranged, done studio recording (plays flugelhorn on this CD), studied many classic orchestration and composition texts, studied classic scores, and even created original scores for some guerrilla indie films. Always listening to and feeling a wide range of music he's as comfortable with making a contagious beat as he is with arranging an orchestral passage. In this CD he's truly found his voice.
Kamau Rashaad lays down the world-class rap found on this CD. As a kid on the southside of Chicago he started writing poetry and making beats on two-tape recorders. Inspired by a list of legendary greats like A Tribe Called Quest, NWA, Ice Cube, and all east and west coast hiphop, he grew up battling and rhyming on street corners and trains, and in school lunch rooms and barber shops (for free haircuts :). He was influenced by hiphop, 70's music, classical, house, and gospel (his mother was once an aspiring gospel singer). Like many others, through his music he sought to escape from family pain, rejection, violence, and what he calls, "the inner city madness outside my bedroom window." Now in Atlanta he's taking hiphop to a more spiritual level. He's worked as a youth leader and has been active amongst those younger adults who have struggled as he has. Often pulled in for mixtapes around town, he's been workin' it both solo and in groups. As a poet, producer, and rapper his lyrics convey an uncommon depth. With a distinct music sensibility he rides the beats as if an improvisational instrument.
Other Atlanta musicians, Sam Skelton on sax with some killer solos, Mike Barry on trumpet, Bruce Mangan on trombone, and Vince Jackson on tuba round out the horn section and lay down some sweet sensations never heard before.
www.mindandsoulmusic.com