chanté moore - straight up (sunship remix)

this is the second time i'm mentioning carly rae jepsen's "call me maybe" but this is in leau of that i heard someone talk about the ambiguity of the lyrics. it blatantly says that she wants to hook up but then there's that word "maybe" which might be an attempt of some idea of teenage love. that idea was shattered when i found out that jepsen's isn't 16, she's 26 and going up to guys and giving them there number with idea of "maybe you can call me" is just stupid.

i came to think then of a song released ten years earlier by american r&b singer chanté moore called "straight up". in this song there is no sense of doubt what she wants the respective to do, there is no maybe. note that i'm not taking a shit on "call me maybe" as that song is not that stupid but in comparison to "straight up", i'm favouring the latter. not because of the lyrical content but that i think it's musically better.

"straight up" in it's original shape is a really punchy r&b track produced by jermaine dupri and sounds a bit like dupri & jay-z's hit song "money ain't thing". this remix by ceri evans aka sunship was a version i found much later and while i like the original i think it one ups it. evans flips the track for an utterly funky garage track and this is what sealed the deal.

the track kicks off with punchy drums and some chopped up vocals and this handling of the vocals follows until the first verse kicks in. the chops are a cross between the style of mk & todd edwards and i really like how he did it. i would describe it as like edwards it very musical and like mk it does become a hook of it's own.

evans take of the track is obviously a bit more on the commercial side of garage as the bass goes on the rhythmic side instead of the assaults from the deep lower end. most of the track is actually dominated by moore's voice and one of the good things evans did was to get rid of jermaine dupri's adlibs. even though her vocal stands right in center all the time you hear two keyboard patches. one lowkey that plays the chords that has a organ-esque sound and a high pitched one that plays during the bridges & hooks.

i do have to say that i didn't like this one when i first head it as i thought it was a bit all over the place but after a thorough listen, it became a favourite of mine.

listen here (youtube)