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My Boyfriend and Me (lookin' like a deer in the headlights) with the lovely Candace Jones at her showcase at Joe's Pub in NYC (06/15/07).
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You may have heard her song "You And Me" from the "Save The Last Dance 2 Soundtrack" or Ne-Yo's "Sexy Love (remix)" which featured her, hopefully you did 'cuz I sure didn't! I was totally clueless about the girl until Friday night. A friend of my boyfriend who is in Candace's camp invited us to her showcase at Joe's Pub down on Lafayette Street.
When we arrived there was list mania going on. You were not getting in there unless your name was on the list because it was sold out, and the place looked packed. As we waited for my boyfriend's friend to come get us. A sexy ass petite woman walks in through the front door and through the crowd, face beat, hair snatched (I love peppering my blog posts with the lingo), in this hot purple dress who seemed to be floating on air, kissing and hugging everyone who stopped her. I leaned over to my boyfriend and whispered "Is that her? Is she the girl we came to see?" at that point I still didn't know her name. When I received my ticket I looked at it and it said "Candace" on it.
When we finally got in I saw that it was definitely as crowded as I thought. We squeezed through the crowd to met up with some other friends of his by the bar and had some small talk before the show started. After about 15-20 minutes they introduced "Candace Jones" and, lo and behold, it was the pretty girl with the purple dress. I loved her performance and her stage presence, she really commanded her stage and connected with her audience. She went on to talk about how she likes to dabble in different genres of music and went on to label them as different flavors of candy, confection, but also short for Candace (think Lil' Kim "How Many Licks" video). She performed all of her songs with background singers and a live band so she gets extra points from me for that.
I will attempt to summarize her performance that night. It will be a little difficult for me though as I don't have official titles for the songs. All I know is that I liked 'em. So I'll Do the best I can.
The first song she performed was "Popped Up" (club candy), a club banger. Then she did one of my favorites of the evening "Breeze By" (R&B candy) a woman scorn, R&B ballad where she sings the line: "You're fucking with my dear emotions and I don't like to cry". Next was "Kansas City(?)" (jazz candy) a jazzy ballad that gave her the chance to really show off her pipes. And then "I'm Not Goin Nowhere" (pop candy), an Avril Lavigne, meets Britney Spears, meets black girl, rock-ish-pop song which sounded great live.
Then there was the kee-kee of the evening... "Fresh Like Us" or as I like to call it, the "Get ya lovin' on time" song. Throughout her upbeat performances she had two male dancers on the stage with her, you know, giving the usual, butch queen R&B back-up dancer effect. Then that music started and them hoodies came off to expose one of them with a tight pink shirt on an the other with a tube top looking thing walking runway, voguing, and dancing around her. The audience collectively gagged, but it was a really nice touch. I wasn't expecting it at all (think Mya "My Love Is Like Wo/Whatever Bitch" performance on Mad TV, YouTube it). To end the evening she performed "Best Move" (girl candy) which is basically one of those all my ladies put ya hands up solidarity type of songs (think the end of Faith Evans "Brand New Man", except it's not so much about a guy). It was a really, really good show and I can't wait to see what great things are in store for her.
When she came out into the audience after the performance my boyfriend and I took a picture with her (the one on top of this post, I know I look CRAZY! LOL) and I said to her that she has "won over a new convert". I also took video of the performance and uploaded it to YouTube. Check out the kee-kee of the evening "Fresh like Us" below. You can check out the rest of the songs on YouTube by visiting my channel, the A. Benjamin Irby Channel. Be sure to subscribe if you want to get notified whenever I add new videos.
Also check out Candace Jones' MySpace Page to watch Candace's new "Best Move" and buy all the tracks I mentioned here and more.
Links:
Her voice is cute. The song sounds very late eighties early nineties. The one in the pink gave it to me. I swear that may be my gay uncle. I need to ask him. LOL. But, I don't know about the straights learning to vogue now. I SWEAR if LIL MAMA or MS. Chris brown gets a hold of it it will EXPLODE.
-Marz
(laughing at Marz last statement in his comment) I have a feelin' he's speakin' the truth on that.
Thanks for sharing. She's on my list.
She's like a combination of Mya, Teedra Moses and Rihanna for me (slight Mya-sounding voice, the Teedra style, attitude and band and Rihanna looks [from the video]).
I had to add her as a friend. I'm sure she's apart of the renewal of strenght in R&B that I feel is happening (due to Mario's latest album [that boy has never done wrong for me and he's done me so right with this album], the arrival of artist like J. Holiday, Cheri Dennis, Keri Hilson, Chrisette Michele, Amy Winehouse and some more I can't remember, the arrival of Teedra Moses' long awaited and highly anticipated second album [thank God. I can't wait to get it; it's sounding hot from w'at I've heard already], the dropping of Raheem DeVaughn' second album [I'm so happy. I'm listening to it right now and it sounds so good. It surpasses The Love Experience; his first album. Luvs it] this Tuesday [1/15/2008] [which I am so getting]).
If her album hasn't already dropped I'm gonna keep my look out for it. It seems like a necessary record to own.