Teena Marie - Funk Biz Audio CD

Funk Biz CD music LA DONA is mostly vintage Marie--sweet, dark, and sultry. Tracks such as "I'm Still in Love" and "My Body's Hungry" are steeped in the kind of '70s soul perfected by the Delfonics and the Stylistics. Many tracks open with modern hip-hop-flecked beats, as on "Honey Call" or "I Got You" (featuring her mentor James), but a jazzy sort of funk prevails, bringing with it a more timeless quality. Even "Makavelli Never Lied" with its opening calls of "thug life," mixes references to both '90s stars (2Pac and Lauryn Hill) and '70s icons (Marvin Gaye and Chaka ...

Funk Biz album 2006's SAPPHIRE is not only Teena Marie's best release in some time (even trumping her fine 2004 "comeback" album, LA DONA), it may be her best album since her early '80s heyday. Lengthy and sprawling, yet packed with superb songwriting, vocal performances, and production, Marie proves she is still one of the strongest talents on the contemporary R&B scene, her age (50) and her race (white) notwithstanding. SAPPHIRE boasts vintage smooth-soul tunes ("Cruise Control" is sung with the architect of smooth soul himself, Smokey Robinson), bumping dance-pop ("Make It Hot"), and even nods to G-funk ("Love Is a Gangsta"), ...

Funk Biz songs All songs written by Teena Marie except "Square Biz" (T. Marie/A. McGrier) and "The Ballad Of Cradle Rob And Me" (T. Marie/J.D. Jones). Principally recorded at Motown, Hollywood, California and Wonderland Studios, Los Angeles, California. Originally released on Gordy (G8-1004M1). Includes liner notes by A. Scott Galloway. Former protégé of Superfreak funk maestro Rick James, Mary Christine Brockert, the R&B powerhouse better known as Teena Marie, blossomed into her element on early albums for the Gordy/Motown label. The singer's fourth and final album for Motown, IT MUST BE MAGIC--her second fully self-written, self-produced effort--oversaw Marie's true creative emancipation. In an inspired ...