If you wanna get with me, boy, you gotta keep it real

A few months ago (can it really have been that long already?), I wrote about Danish singer Mukupa. As part of a group, she was one of the pioneers of women in hip-hop and rap, but her solo album 2nd Base is incredibly poppy, with the occasional Verbalicious-esque rap thrown in. When I first wrote about her, one of the songs I featured was "Stop Stop," a pop song with a little bit of faux-R&B mixed in. Her album also features a remix of it, and--somewhat unusually for me--I think I prefer it to the original.

Stop Stop (Fu Tourists Remix)--I know those first five seconds aren't hugely promising, but stick with it, because once you get the real beat and swooshing background effects, it'll be a hard song to resist. The verses are sped up and this remix smartly keeps (and plays up) the "aahhh-aahhh"'s, but it's those moments like the one just after the beginning that make this song worth listening to--they're "throw your hands up and forget you troubles" moments.

To buy Mukupa's album 2nd Base, go here (physical) or here (digital).

Matt Willis's new single is out in its physical version on April 2, with the digital release a week beforehand. It's a cover of the Primitives' "Crash" and he's got a clip of it on his MySpace--it doesn't sound better than Shebang's version and it's not about to beat "Up All Night" (not much does), but it's not bad. My hope that he succeeds may be influencing my perspective here, though.

The video for Gareth Gates's new single "Changes" comes out this Sunday--hopefully, it'll be on YouTube soon afterwards!

Edit: I forgot--Jimmy Jansson and Sebastian's new albums come out today (and maybe others I've forgotten about, too)! You can listen to clips from Sebastian's album The Vintage Virgin on the Swedish iTunes here (I haven't really gotten to do so yet, though I will say that trigger metaphors are overused in music); I haven't found anywhere to preview Jimmy's album Sån E Jag yet (besides his official site, which has clips of two of the songs on it--click on "Musik"), but I'll let you know if I do. Incidentally, someone seems to have made a mistake, because a lot of the digital music sites selling Jimmy's song "Amanda" have, instead of a picture of Jimmy, the cover of Jessica Andersson's "Kom" accompanying the song--slight difference. You can buy Sebastian's album here and Jimmy's album here.

Next up: probably that group from Belgium.