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Shuffled! is a weekly column appearing every Thursday here on BPRLive. Each week, we welcome a person from the APA community to share some thoughts about the music they listen to. Check out the Shuffled! archive for past articles.

Today’s Shuffler: Janet S. Kim

Janet S. Kim is an actor/writer/director living in New York City. Most recently, she got to go back and relive high school as a cool kid in the award-winning play, “The Seed” in the Strawberry One Act festival 2008. She’s performed and/or seen her stuff across the country in various projects in Boston, LA, Chicago and NYC. She also penned the short-lived but to be revived webcomic “Office Supply Theatre.” When she’s not playing under age teens or writing dialogue bubbles, she likes to look for good burgers or random jerky stores in chinatown to fill her red meat quotient of the week.

The S stands for Shuffled!

“Mothership Connection Starchild (The Second Coming)”
Parliment
Dear George Clinton,
Thank you for educating me on the many uses of the word “funk.” Although I was quite confused at seeing one of your male band members in playing in a wedding dress in the 80s movie “PCU,” I still dig your groove and your funktastic (see what I did there?) vibes. This expansion of my vocabulary, though a bit after your time, is much appreciated. Plus, “Gin and Juice” wouldn’t have been much without you.
Funkfully yours,
Janet

“The Red”
Jaylib
This is the first track of the first album I heard one day when I was rummaging around in the Kim’s Bookstore in my neighborhood. The whole damn thing was so good that I decided to stay and listen to the rest of the tracks. And then like a cheesy movie character I asked the clerk “What is this?” And the rest is history. Actually, I had to make myself wait a week because I rarely buy albums in stores, much less a random album that I’ve only heard over the store speakers. But the dang tracks kept playing in my head, so I went back and bought it. Later after listening both CDs in the compilation, I realized that what I heard in the store was the bonus mixtape!!!!! I’d like to put the whole 10 Year Stone’s Throw compilation on here, but I figured the first track would be a good place to start.

“Cold Call”
Lyrics Born
Yaaaay! I was hoping to get a Lyrics Born track on this thing. Another whole album that I can listen to through and through – I just dig his voice and his fun flow. I remember when “Calling Out” was playing behind Adrian Brody’s Diet Coke commercial – everyone was sweating on Adrian Brody, but dang if the track didn’t make him swagger. Even though this is a funny track, I really appreciate how they use background singers and make the story of the song clear. Hey, if only most telemarketers could be soul singers. I think it’d be cool to have a Lyrics Born alarm clock or something, his voice seems to exude a, “Hey man, its all right. Chiiiilll” quality to it.

“The Dark End of the Street”
Aretha Franklin
Hrm the sappy side. I like Aretha’s covers. She can be really soulful and open or she does something really unexpected with them. I dig her rendition of “Elanor Rigby,” didn’t expect it to be such a fun track. Actually, to be honest, I didn’t realize that this was a cover of something until I wikepedia-ed the album after it was put on my iPod. I actually don’t know if I’ve heard the original “Dark End of the Street.” Still, this one is pretty dope. Even though this is still a song about cheating.

“In Accordance”
Diverse
Ok, so can we talk about hip-hop love songs? Talib Kweli always has a track or two on all his albums, and when I first heard Common’s “Come Close,” I almost fell through the floor. Gotdamn. Anywho, there’s a really lovely jazzy feel to it so it can be easy just to groove to those. But the chorus “You blazin on my mental like the strength of the sun/ don’t even press it cause your presence is like second to none” gahhhhhhhh! How dope. Its like one of those undercover love songs – if you’re not listening carefully, you may miss all the words.

Last 5 posts by shuffled

• Shuffled! North Star of the BROWNSTAR Revolution - December 10th, 2009
• Shuffled! Pen Khek Chear - November 25th, 2009
• Shuffled! Maanav Thakore - November 19th, 2009
• Shuffled! Jerry Ma - August 13th, 2009
• Shuffled! Tanzila Ahmed - August 6th, 2009

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