Artist Of The Month

Singer/songwriter Matisse is no stranger to the spotlight. She began appearing on TV at six months of age on “One Life To Live” and by the age of 15 she was a popular spokes-model for the successful hair care brand John Frieda and signed to The Ford Agency. But now at 23 years old it’s always been about music.

From an early age Matisse gravitated toward music, finding inspiration in the songs of Michael Jackson, Prince, Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. Whether singing along to Motown with family, putting on impromptu concerts with friends or taking the stage with her Dad and his band, she always had a tendency to steal the show.  “My family is very musical and I grew up listening to everything from rock and roll, to pop, soul, the blues you name it.  I definitely inherited my parent’s love of music, and was influenced by their diverse tastes.” Evidently music is an innate family trait. Matisse and her twin sister Alex honed their craft from an early age which led to a stint as a duo with Universal Music.  Now, after years of writing, recording and fine-tuning her sound, Matisse is ready for her close-up.

Like the famous painter with whom she shares her name, Matisse refuses to follow convention and instead sings to the beat of her own drum.  “Over the years people have tried to make me into something I’m not,” Matisse says, “but I’m not interested in being the next ‘so and so’ or compromising myself to be a one hit wonder.  I want to make music that I like and that I can be proud of.”

Matisse has been working with some of the biggest names in music such as Dallas Austin, Tricky Stewart, The Dream, Ne-Yo, Stargate and Kevin Rudolf.  As a result, she has compiled a collection of songs that define her as bold, colorful, strong and determined; someone ready to be heard.  “I’ve been writing, recording and performing for years now. I’m definitely ready for this.”

Her background and experience make Matisse a unique – and sometimes surprising – personality.  “My family likes to tease me because I’m fiercely independent and freedom loving, yet I don’t have my driver’s license.  They think it’s funny that I can be equally enthralled with “The Star” magazine as I am with “Anna Karenina.”

As Tricky Stewart says, Matisse “brings the entire package to the table: great songwriting, strong vocals and explosive live performance”.

Meet Matisse.

(Press Play Button on bottom left to hear music)

Artist of The Month

Sometimes it pays to be different. Hailing from Atlanta, Georgia, a city known for its outcasts, B.o.B is truly out of the ordinary. At just 19 years old, the rapper – born Bobby Ray Simmons – has become a breath of fresh air in Atlanta’s snap and trap-obsessed scene. Known primarily for his heavy smokers anthem, “Cloud 9,” and the frenetic energy of his song “Haterz Everywhere,” B.o.B scored a record deal with Atlantic Records while he was still in high school. Now, the teen-aged rap phenomenon is ready to bring his genre-bending style nationwide with his highly anticipated debut, The Adventures of B.o.B.

B.o.B made the decision very early in his young life to pursue a career in hip-hop. He started rapping at the age of 13 after studying classic albums from DMX and Eminem. With the encouragement of his older brother, B.o.B started feverishly writing down anything and everything. “At the time, Joe Budden was poppin’ and my brother told me when Joe was 15 he used to fill up notebooks with rhymes,” says B.o.B “That lit off a light bulb for me and I was like damn, I need to do more than that. Then from seventh grade up to tenth grade, I just started filling up notebooks with lyrics. Then it got to the point where I was just writing them in my head.”

While still in junior high school, B.o.B formed a group with his cousin Swag, called The Klinic. The two young MCs were able to buy a simple studio set-up that included the beat-making program Fruity Loops. They quickly started crafting their own songs and performing at open mics around Atlanta. Their manager, B Rich, introduced them to a local ATL rapper named Playboy Tre of the Georgia Durt camp, and he taught the young’ns how to use his professional studio.

The Klinic continued to collaborate until their senior year of high school in 2006, when B.o.B’s cousin decided to leave home in order to attend college. Faced with a tough decision, B.o.B chose to continue rapping, this time as a solo artist. “I called my manager and was like, ‘I think I’m just going to start working at the mall for a little while and get some money so I can really start pursuing music like I want to,’” he remembers. “Him and Playboy Tre came by my house and were like, ‘Look man, we can get you a deal within a year, don’t give up!’”

In mid-September of ‘06, just two weeks after going solo, B.o.B performed at Club Crucial, where TJ Chapman, founder of the national DJ conference TJ’s DJ’s, was in attendance. After hearing the rap rookie perform “Cloud 9,” TJ was convinced he was in the presence of a star. “That was the first time I performed ‘Cloud 9′ and I got a standing ovation,” says B.o.B “TJ Chapman was amazed. He linked up with B Rich, who let him hear my music, and TJ wanted to be involved in the team.”

With the budding MC’s demo in hand, TJ, B.o.B and B Rich flew to Miami to meet platinum producer Jim Jonsin. After one listen, Jonsin offered B.o.B a spot on his label. On October 3, 2006, B.o.B signed to Atlantic Records through Jonsin’s Rebel Rock. “I’m really focused on painting a picture of myself as a musician and an artist and not just a rapper,” says B.o.B “I feel like I’m not just making rap music; I feel like I’m changing music, period.”

The gifted showman’s debut album, The Adventures of B.o.B, is a fascinating journey into the Atlanta artist’s far-reaching imagination. On the track “Not Alone,” a song B.o.B describes as an alternative rock chant, he touches on his pain as a child who was unable to fit in with his own peers. The Tombz-produced cut, “Camera,” explores the story of a young woman who chooses life as a stripper over a college education.

B.o.B continues to rap to the ladies on “Cyber Heaven,” where he claims his lovin’ will take them out of this world, while “Haterz Everywhere” featuring Rich Boy, a song that has flooded the South since its release in early 2007, proves his stronghold over the competition. B.o.B’s most honest reflection of his artistic intent comes on “Trippin’,” where he raps about using his craft as a therapeutic means of solving his feelings of eccentricity. “I feel like I have a really different perspective,” he says. “When I grew up it was really hard for me to figure out why I felt that way, like I really felt like I was from another planet. Now, it’s the opposite. All of that time I spent developing my talent and really analyzing myself, now I feel like I can express all of that and give all of my energy and love to the world.”

After producing the majority of his album by himself, and learning to play multiple musical instruments – including the piano, trumpet and French horn – B.o.B is destined to spread his message of creativity and empowerment through his music. “I just want to show people that there are endless possibilities of what you can do,” he says. “You don’t just have to be a rapper, you don’t just have to be a trapper; you can be anything you want to be and whatever you do, just love it and it will show.”

Artist Of The Month

Ke$ha

KE$HA

If there’s one thing Ke$ha knows how to do, it’s tell stories. Here’s a pretty good one: Two years ago, the aspiring pop singer and songwriter decided she wanted Prince to produce her first album. So, she found out his address and drove to his Beverly Hills home, where she paid the gardener five dollars to let her squeeze herself under his front gate. Then she hiked up the driveway (which was lined in purple velvet), let herself in through an unlocked side door, and rode the mirrored elevator up to the third floor where the Purple One himself was jamming with his band. “It was kind of awkward,” she recalls, “but who cares, right? So I sat on one of the purple thrones in the room until he noticed me, which he finally did. He was like, ‘How the hell did you get in here?’” she says with a laugh. “His security kicked me out, but not before I left him my demo CD wrapped in a giant purple bow.”

Ke$ha never did hear from Prince, but the incident speaks volumes about this 22-year-old newcomer’s firecracker personality and determination. “I’ve always known I wanted to be a performer,” she says. “There’s video of me at age five, naked and covered in body paint, saying, ‘I’m going to be a rock star and there’s no way anyone is going to stop me!’ It’s my calling. If I don’t go for it, I’m going to feel like a tool when I’m 50.”

Luckily, Ke$ha won’t have to find out what regret feels like. She is currently at work writing and recording her debut album with executive producer Dr. Luke, who has scored No. 1 smashes for Britney Spears, Katy Perry, Kelly Clarkson, Avril Lavigne, and Flo Rida. After falling for her playful half-sung/half-rapped vocal delivery on a rough demo, Luke brought Ke$ha to RCA Records, which signed her in February 2009. The album — which will also feature Ke$ha’s collaborations with veteran hitmaker Max Martin (Pink, Kelly Clarkson, Britney Spears) and in-demand songwriter/producer Benny Blanco (Katy Perry, 3OH!3, Spank Rock) — is shaping up to be an edgy collection of hard-hitting electro-pop songs, made all the more irresistible by their high-octane punk energy and Ke$ha’s irreverent lyrics and attitude. “I want my music to be fun, unapologetic, rowdy, quirky, humorous, and interesting,” she says, “but with substance behind it. I’m an emotional person underneath all my fronting. I want people to listen to it and feel like they can relate.”

Not surprisingly, the songs showcase Ke$ha’s flair for storytelling, though her choice of subject matter isn’t exactly conventional. There’s a song about the time Ke$ha threw up in a closet during a party at Paris Hilton’s pad (“Party at a Rich Dude’s House”), and one she says is about the time “some dumb bitch fronted like she was my friend but then secretly tried to bring me down” (“Backstabber”), and another about finding out her boyfriend was cheating on her with a famous pop starlet who shall remain nameless (“Kiss & Tell”). Oh, and the one she wrote about beginning to see the universe as a cyclical chain of connected events after meeting a guy in a club (“Chain Reaction,” which has been featured on MTV’s The Hills).

Ke$ha credits her love for story-songs to spending her formative years hanging out with veteran songwriters in Nashville. Her mom Pebe, a former punk-rock singer, is a songwriter whose career took off in Music City in the late ’70s when a song she co-wrote, called “Old Flames Can’t Hold A Candle To You,” became a hit for Joe Sun in 1978 and a country chart-topper for Dolly Parton in 1980. But by the time Ke$ha was born in 1987 (during a party in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley, Pebe was going through a bad patch, struggling to support Ke$ha and her older brother through her music. “We were on welfare and food stamps,” Ke$ha says. “One of my first memories is my mom telling me, ‘If you want something, just take it.’”

In 1991, Pebe moved the family back to Nashville, where she had landed a new publishing deal. Ke$ha saw the inside of a lot of recording studios. “I thought everyone grew up in a recording studio,” she says. She attended a music school in the Tennessee countryside (“where some of the kids didn’t have any shoes,” she recalls), took songwriting classes, and fell in love with country music greats Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton, and Patsy Cline. “I’d listen to these beautiful songs and they all told stories,” she says. “Bob Dylan’s Nashville Skyline is one of my all-time favorite records.” From time to time, Pebe let Ke$ha sing on tracks she was working on. “My mom always told me, ‘You have a good voice, practice singing,’ so I’d sing everything all the time,” Ke$ha says.

When Ke$ha was 17, she quit high school, “which was crazy because I was enrolled in an International Baccalaureate program and was going to go to Columbia University and study psychology,” she says, “but I wanted to move back to L.A. and pursue my music.” That’s when she met Dr. Luke. “I had been looking for a female artist with an incredible, distinctive voice who had her own style,” Luke says. “Ke$ha didn’t sound like anybody else.” Dr. Luke was also working with red-hot hip-hop artist Flo Rida on a track for his second album. One night, Ke$ha was hanging out with them and the rapper told her he wanted a female voice on a track and asked if she wanted to lay down a vocal. Naturally, she obliged. In February, that track, “Right Round,” soared to No. 1, selling more than 636,000 downloads its first week out, and shattering the all-time one-week digital single sales record. (Ke$ha also contributes her sassy vocal stylings to “Touch Me,” another track from Flo Rida’s upcoming 2009 album R.O.O.T.S.)

“When I first heard my voice on ‘Right Round’ on the radio, I started screaming and crying,” Ke$ha says. “I may seem kind of crazy, but behind it all I have my s**t together. I’m working really hard to make this happen and it’s nice to see that hard work pay off. I mean, three years ago I was stealing canned vegetables from the dollar store to survive. Now I’m on a No. 1 song, working on my album, and have a little change in my pocket. To be able to take my mom out to dinner is the best feeling in the world.”

Artist of The Month

Alicia Keys

Nine-time Grammy Award winner Alicia Keys returns with her long-awaited third studio album, As I Am, set for a worldwide release on November 13 on J Records. Within 10 hours of being serviced to radio, Alicia first single, “No One,” became one of the fastest moving and highest charting single on Billboard’s Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. This also marks the highest first single debut for a female artist in 2007 on the R&B Monitor’s Urban Mainstream chart!
“No One” was written and produced by Keys, longtime collaborator Kerry “Krucial” Brothers and Dirty Harry. The Justin Francis/The Saline Project-directed video for “No One” was recently shot in LA and will premiere on national video outlets on September 17.

Her first studio album since the critically-acclaimed 2003’s The Diary of Alicia Keys, Alicia showcases her songwriting and producing talents on all 13 songs on As I Am, but also joins forces on several tracks with her longtime collaborator Kerry “Krucial” Brothers, award-winning songwriters Linda Perry, John Mayer, Harold Lilly, Sean Garrett and producers Mark Batson, Dirty Harry, Swizz Beatz and Jack Splash.

One of the few artists who can capture an old-school vibe and make if feel refreshingly new, Alicia tackles this feat once again with an album she describes as “Janis Joplin meets Aretha Franklin.” Punctuated with rich powerful vocals, Alicia’s vocal muses can be felt on songs ranging from the anthemic “Superwoman” and power-charged “Go Ahead” to the misty-eyed ballad “Like You Never See Me Again” and the soulful “Sure Looks Good To Me.”

Tonight on CBS’s Fashion Rocks, Alicia mesmerizes the audience with a soul-stirring performance of “The Thing About Love” from As I Am and joins the incredible Carlos Santana in an amazing duet of “Black Magic Woman.” Keys will also rock the MTV Video Music Awards on September 9 with a national televised debut performance of her new hit single “No One.”

Since the 2001 debut of Songs In A Minor, the New York native has built an unparalleled repertoire of hits and accomplishments with over 20 million albums sold worldwide! Songs In A Minor, which spawned her signature hit “Fallin,” sold more than 10 million copies worldwide and garnered five Grammy Awards including Best New Artist and Best R&B Album. Alicia’s follow-up disc, 2004’s The Diary of Alicia Keys, which is currently 7 times platinum, captured four Grammy Awards and featured the hits “If I Ain’t Got You,” “You Don’t Know My Name,” and “Karma.” With the 2005 release of Unplugged, which has sold 2 million copies, Keys became the first female R&B artist to have three consecutive #1 debuts on the Billboard 200 album chart in as many releases.

Artist of the Month

John Mayer

Clizbeats Artist of the month is John Mayer

John Mayer enrolled in the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts, at the age of nineteen.  After two semesters, he chose to cut his studies short, and at the urging of his college friend and Atlanta native, Clay Cook, the two moved to Atlanta, Georgia. Quickly making a name for their two-man band, LoFi Masters, they began their career in earnest there, frequenting the local coffee house and club circuit in venues like Eddie’s Attic. Cook has said, however, that they began to experience musical differences due to Mayer’s desire to take the duo in more of a pop direction.  The two parted ways, and Mayer embarked on a solo career.

With the help of local producer and engineer Glenn Matullo, Mayer recorded the independent EP Inside Wants Out. Cook is also cited as the co-writer of many of the songs from the EP, most notably, Mayer’s first commercial single release, “No Such Thing”. The EP includes only eight songs, all with Mayer on lead vocals and guitars, with the exception of “Comfortable” in which Mayer only recorded the vocals. For the opening track, “Back To You”, a full band was enlisted, including the EP’s co-producer David “DeLa” LaBruyere on bass guitars.  Mayer and LaBruyere then began to tour throughout Georgia and the surrounding states.
Major label success

Mayer’s reputation began to build, and a March 2000 appearance at South by Southwest brought him to the attention of “launch” label, Aware Records. After including him in the Aware Festival concerts and having his songs included on Aware compilations, in early 2001, Aware released Mayer’s internet-only album entitled, Room for Squares. During that time, Aware inked a deal with Columbia Records that gave Columbia first pick in signing Aware artists, and so in September of the same year, Columbia remixed and re-released Room for Squares. As part of the major label “debut”, the album’s artwork was updated, and the track “3×5″ was added. The re-release also included reworked studio versions of the first four songs from his indie album, Inside Wants Out.

By the end of 2002, Room for Squares had spawned several radio hits, including “No Such Thing,” “Your Body Is a Wonderland,” and ultimately, “Why Georgia.” In 2003, Mayer won a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for “Your Body Is a Wonderland.” In his acceptance speech he remarked, “This is very, very fast, and I promise to catch up.” He also figuratively referred to himself as being sixteen, a remark that many mistook to mean that he was only sixteen years old at the time.

In 2003, Mayer released a live CD and DVD of a concert in Birmingham, Alabama entitled, Any Given Thursday. The concert featured songs previously not recorded, such as “Man on the Side” (co-written with Cook) and “Something’s Missing”, which later appeared on Heavier Things. The concert also included “Covered In Rain”. According to the accompanying DVD documentary, this song is “part two” of the song “City Love”, which features the line “covered in rain”. Commercially, the album quickly peaked at number seventeen on the Billboard 200 chart. The CD/DVD received conservative, although consistent, praise, with critics torn between his pop-idol image, and (at the time) emerging guitar prowess. Erik Crawford (of Allmusic) asked “Is he the consummate guitar hero exemplified when he plays a cover of Stevie Ray Vaughan’s ‘Lenny’, or is he the teen idol that the pubescent girls shriek for after he plays ‘Your Body Is a Wonderland?’”

Heavier Things, Mayer’s second album, was released in 2003 to generally favorable reviews. Rolling Stone, Allmusic and Blender all gave positive, although reserved, feedback. PopMatters said that it “doesn’t have as many drawbacks as one might assume”. The album was commercially successful, and while it did not sell as well as Room for Squares, it peaked at number one on the US Billboard 200 chart. Mayer earned his first number one single with the song “Daughters” as well as a 2005 Grammy for Song of the Year, beating out fellow contenders Alicia Keys and Kanye West. He dedicated the award to his grandmother, Annie Hoffman, who died in May 2004. He also won Best Male Pop Vocal Performance, beating Elvis Costello, Prince, and Seal for the award. In his February 9 2009 interview on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Mayer said that he thought he shouldn’t have won the Grammy for Song of the year because he thought that Alicia Keys’ If I Ain’t Got You was the better song. Because of this, he removed the top half of the Grammy and gave it to Keys, and kept the bottom part for himself. At the 37th Annual Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony in 2006, Mayer was honored with the Hal David Starlight Award.

Mayer again recorded live concerts across seven nights of his U.S. tour in 2004. These recordings were released to the iTunes music store under the title as/is, indicating that the errors were included along with the good moments. A few months later, a “best of” CD was compiled from the as/is nights. The album included a previously unreleased cover of Marvin Gaye’s song “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)”, featuring a solo from Mayer’s support act—jazz and blues turntablist, DJ Logic. All the album covers of the as/is releases feature drawings of anthropomorphic bunnies.
January 2005, left to right: David Ryan Harris, John Mayer and Steve Jobs at Macworld 11, SF Moscone Center.

With increased exposure, Mayer’s talent came into demand in other areas. Steve Jobs invited Mayer to perform during the keynote address of Apple’s annual Macworld Conference & Expo, in January 2004, as Jobs introduced the software application GarageBand. The gig led to Mayer becoming a fixture of the event. He rejoined Jobs on stage for a solo performance at Macworld 2007, following the announcement of the iPhone. Mayer has also done endorsements, such as a Volkswagen commercial for the Beetle’s guitar outlet and for the BlackBerry Curve.

CBS confirmed on January 14, 2009 that Mayer is in negotiations with the station for a variety show. The details of the deal and the nature of the show are yet unknown.

Mayer has recently collaborated with Australian soul artist Guy Sebastian on three songs on his upcoming album “Like it Like That”. He also played guitar on the title track of Crosby Loggins’s debut LP, Time to Move, released on July 10, 2009.

On 7 July 2009, Mayer performed an instrumental guitar version of Michael Jackson’s “Human Nature” at Jackson’s memorial service.
Battle Studies

On August 24, 2009, Mayer posted on his official Twitter profile that his fourth studio album, Battle Studies, will be released November 17. The album consists of 11 tracks running 45 minutes long. The first single from the album, called “Who Says”, was released on September 24.