New York, NY (August 27, 2008) - This is good shit! I spotted this trolling through the NY Times today. Somehow it’s gone under the radar for the last few days. Allow me to bring it to light:

… AS an actor in films like “Hustle & Flow,” “Crash” and “Iron Man,” Terrence Howard has played characters whose calm demeanor conceals a suppressed rage that is the result of dreams deferred, denied or realized on only barely acceptable terms. That he is African-American inevitably introduces race into his portrayals, but not because of anything he does, at least overtly. Whether it’s in the script or not, Mr. Howard not only doesn’t play the race card, he buries it in subtleties. So if, as a viewer, you find yourself searching for it … well, that’s the point, and the problem.

That complex dynamic extends into Mr. Howard’s music, or to people’s expectations of what it will be. He said his own record company assumed that he would make a hip-hop album after the song “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,” which Mr. Howard performed as the pimp and aspiring rapper DJay in “Hustle & Flow,” won an Academy Award for best original song for its composers, the rap group Three 6 Mafia, in 2006.

But Mr. Howard, 39, refused to perform the song at the Oscars because of its language and content, and his own musical tastes lie in a decidedly different direction.

Indeed. The title track seems like a smooth fusion of Jack Johnson’s surfer/lament, mixed with some 70’s funk and a touch of R&B. “Love Makes You Beautiful” starts out like a Broadway anthem and then transitions into a Motown-sounding mash of gospel and pop. Get an opinion on the third track for yourself! It’s excellent stuff and definitely doesn’t sound like ANYTHING that’s out right now. Definitely worth the few minutes to listen.

Tags: actor, album, broadway, cool, gospel, howard, jazz, mp3, Music, pop, style, terrence, urban

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 27th, 2008 at 8:44 pm and is filed under Audio, Culture, Movies, Music, Singers, fashion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.