It's the re-Return of the B-Girl. Let it be known, the MC from Crenshaw, T-Love (aka TauraLove) is back--for the stay. After moving to London, to record her debut album, Long Way Back, she took a four-year hiatus to start a family. During her maternity-leave, she dusted-off all the cassette tapes, DATs, analog reel-to-reels and CDs of previously unreleased material and is now ready to reintroduce herself back to the crowd.
Unfortunately, her first-ever demo, recorded with John Ciafone (of Mood II Swing fame) didn't survive, but eventually she dug up enough material to fill a 10-CD-set collection. But a CD can only hold so much, so only the best-of-the-best were selected. The CD will also include a booklet containing T-Love's historical anecdotes and pictures from her personal photo-album.
To give the listener a taste of what to expect from this album, titled Long Way Up: Basement Tapes (due out Fall/Winter 2007), Brawl Records is coming with a 3-songed 12" single, material dating between 1995 and 2001. The organic-hardcore 90s classic, "Definition Of A Yee-Yee", was produced by Muddfoot (Whooliganz, Soul Assassins), and is backed by the smooth and jazzy "Foolish Pride" (produced by Ollie Teeba and the Herbaliser, co-produced by T-Love). Written and recorded during the years she resided in Southeast London, "Butcher's Hook" (also produced by Ollie Teeba and the Herbaliser) is the B-side-exclusive. It features the international b-girl flexing cockney lingo. This is just a foreshadowing of music to come, from T-Love's ecclectic repertoire. .
She is currently finishing other albums, one of which is titled Strong Enough.It is poised to be an international hip-hop delight and features Jazz Liberatorz and Breiss [Meaux-Town, France], myka 9 [FreestyleFellowship, Haiku d'État--Los Angeles, CA, USA], Hocus Pocus [Nantes, France], Ollie Teeba and Huw72 [London, England], Tido [TTC--Paris, France], Katrah-Quey [Twin Cities, MINN, USA]. T-Love even banged out a couple of tunes herself, on her MOTIF ES8 and guitar.When asked to describe what this album is like--she responded: "If hip-hop itself could sing, this is what it would sound like." It is progressive, evolutionary and unlike anything you've ever heard.
But in the meantime, vinyl-mongers and wax DJs REALLY need to keep their eyes peeled for Fatlip [Pharcyde--Los Angeles, CA, USA] and T-Love's smoking duet on Jazz Liberatorz's ground-breaking and soon-to-be-a classic track, titled "Genius At Work" [KIF Records, France]. She just laid-down a "Frenglish" song titled "Vocab (J'veux pas de)" with 20Syl of Hocus Pocus, one of France's most successful and emerging hip-hop groups. Additionally, T-Love and Nya [Erik Truffaz's resident--MC, Switzerland] are currently collaborating for his new solo project, and, as if that weren't enough, T-Love just began recording some new sides, to be released via Brawl's sister label, KIF Records. And now it's time to brawl.
