…I do.  I don’t think I’m alone… am I?  Blue Note has the Masters to album, Popular Machine, and he claims he can’t afford to buy them back.  Wow.  Sounds like some Frankie Lymon-like wackness**.  Meanwhile, Popular Machine, originally slated for release in January 2008, has become more of a Popular Myth.

I like his music because it’s a harmonic metaphor for why there is no homogeneous “black experience”.  Black music is not some shuck-n-jive formula, it’s influenced by (and daily influences) a million things.  What’s sad is that time and time again, record labels and media outlets have no idea how to market black people who aren’t glossy formulaic urban archetypes.  Dude had two Grammy nods:

• 2005 Grammy Award nomination for Best Urban/Alternative Performance for “Dust.”
• 2006 Grammy Award win for Best R&B Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals for “Family Affair“

…and still got little to no airplay.  He lamented in a December 2007 statement, “Every day, somebody in the business wants me to change something about who I am so they can have an easier time dealing with me.”

But I bring to you the lead single and a leaked track from that perhaps-never-to-be-heard album, and a link to his site…. He’s got some new stuff in the works, I hear.  Godspeed.

**urban myth proclaims that Frankie Lymon sold the songwriting credits to had smash hit “Why Do Fools fall in Love” for a hot dog from a street vendor.

UPDATE!