14 best foreign exchanges

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Double 180gm vinyl LP pressing. Representative of how the Internet can aid in creating music, The Foreign Exchange started when Little Brother rapper Phonte heard a beat on Okayplayer. Com by Dutch producer Nicolay and asked if he could lay some vocals over it. Nicolay agreed, and the song "Light It Up" appeared shortly after as the B-side to "Whatever You Say" off Little Brother's 2003 album, The Listening. Relying mainly on Instant Messenger and email, the duo continued to work together, with Nicolay sending beats to Phonte, who would add vocals and send them back until they had enough tracks together to form an album. Not once during the entire process of making their debut, Connected, which came out in 2004, did the members of the Foreign Exchange speak over the phone or in person.

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As cliche as it sounds, music does have the ability to bring people of various background and ethnicities together. Think not? Witness Connected, the debut album from the Foreign Exchange. North Carolina-raised MC Phonte, one-third of Little Brother, and Dutch producer Nicolay formed the duo and crafted the ethereally lush hip-hop album without ever meeting face-to-face. Using the marvels of modern technology, the group traded verses and tracks over the Internet. The result is anything but mechanical. Nicolay crafts soulful, intricate backdrops that draw comparisons to producers Pete Rock and Kanye West. On the appropriately titled "Nic's Groove", the producer crafts a pitch-perfect midtempo track over which Phonte and Little Brother cohort Big Pooh trade verses. Phonte also enlists a host of upcoming artists to guest on the set. The group's MC teams with newcomer Median on the emotional "Be Alright". While Median holds his own, Phonte is in full command with a personal lyric about dealing with the ups and downs of everyday life. Meanwhile, "Sincere", which features R&B songstress YahZarah, will have listeners falling in love with hip-hop and each other all over again. Connected is a prime example of the power of good music uniting different worlds. Maybe our elected officials could take a page out of the book of the Foreign Exchange. --Amazon

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The second Foreign Exchange album reverses the rapping/singing split of the first. Not only is Leave It All Behind much more an R&B album than 2004's Connected - it's more an R&B album than a lot of modern releases filed in that section, given that Phonte slips into MC mode only twice while otherwise putting his sensitive singing voice to full use. Even more nuanced and textured, and therefore more musical than Connected, Leave It All Behind is a concise and complete set of songs that brings out the best of both producer Nicolay and Phonte. More than ever, Nicolay's mellow but moving productions have that lingering, memory-triggering effect mastered by the late J Dilla, and a multitude of shades is cast: dreamy folk-soul that ranks with the Beauty Room and latter-day 4hero, lean and contemporary constructions that would fit within any adult-oriented R&B station's playlist, deceptively frictional backdrops that bridge hip-hop to West London broken beat, and even the intermittent unclassifiable moment, with several styles thrown into swirls of crescendo-enhanced dramatics. Joined by Connected accomplices Darien Brockington and YahZarah (her lead turn on "If She Breaks Your Heart" sounds even more like a lost Stevie/Minnie collaboration than the Jungle Fever soundtrack original), as well as Muhsinah (an earthbound Georgia Anne Muldrow), Phonte does not deliver knockouts, yet he is not out of his depth and never reaches beyond his grasp, exuding warmth and sincerity as effectively as anyone praised for inhuman range. Even when his lyrics deal in the less complicated aspects of relationships, his voice provides a gently bittersweet tint, as a man with his guard down whose articulations are neither reactionary nor based on some false posture. And with love as it's core rather than impulsive lust, as well as it's unified feel, Leave It All Behind is not just a unique and exceptional R&B album but also a soundtrack or means of communication - when heat-of-the-moment resentment, a lump in the throat, or anxious longing get in the way - for a real-life adult relationsh

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The album features the freshest talent including Atlanta-bred singer/songwriter Bosco and her dope jam 'Mph'. Bosco is a musical force of nature and her sound combines the rawest, headiest elements of R&B, dance and beyond. Next up we discover 'Close To You' from the magical world of Napoleon Wright II & Jared Wofford aka Art Nap. For all true music fans and followers Hide&Seek really is for you.

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FE s new release REWORKS are selections from The Foreign Exchange s +FE Music catalog as remixed by Nicolay, Zo!, 4hero, The Randy Watson Experience (?uestlove & James Poyser), Focus..., Tall Black Guy, Pirahnahead, and more.



*INCLUDES 3 NEW STUDIO TRACKS*.

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Only two months after Nicolay issued his collaborative CityLights, Vol. 3: Soweto, the producer and instrumentalist, along with singing, songwriting, and arranging partner Phonte, returned with the most varied Foreign Exchange album. It's also the one that most emphasizes the duo's extended family of collaborators. The cover of this, their fifth proper full-length, displays Carmen Rodgers and Tamisha Waden - two of their co-lead and background vocalists - as well as Lorenzo "Zo!" Ferguson. The FE nucleus and Zo! Go way back and take it to another level here, with Zo! - similar to Nicolay, a studio wiz who typically works in isolation - a co-songwriter and co-producer of every song. Perhaps proximity and a history as performing partners partly explain why so much of this sounds like a party, as free and easy as the group's shows. FE previously went house with "So What If It Is," a deep and cleansing track, but when they return to the form here, it's with the humorous and rhythmically tougher early-'90s throwback "Asking for a Friend," where Phonte affects a distinguished Englishman accent akin to that of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air's Geoffrey Butler. On first listen, the song sounds merely like an amusing novelty until the stellar Waden-led chorus enters and takes it somewhere else. (No R&B group before them has maintained such a strong balance between female and male voices.) A different stunt is pulled with "Work It to the Top," bumping boogie that touches on 1979-1981 Slave - just a little bit - down to Phonte's spirited Steve Arrington mannerisms. Beyond those two songs and the pair of delighted Brazilian fusion-styled title tracks that begin and end the album, what remains largely refines the sweet and blissful grooves of Love in Flying Colors. That's not a bad thing, not when the writing is as sharp, with rich harmonies laced through rhythms that bound and wind with unforced finesse and warmth. Even with a disarming ballad on each side, Tales from the Land of Milk and Honey is one of the most fun R&B albums in some time.

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Picking up where their 2008 Grammy-nominated "Leave It All Behind" set left off, "Authenticity" is the group's most diverse work to date, with a tight, 11-track song cycle spanning the duo's trademark brand of lush electronic soul, to stripped down acoustic pieces that recall the heyday of 70's singer-songwriter driven folk.

Lead single "Maybe She'll Dream Of Me" is a playful, synth-driven hip-hop groove featuring a rapped verse from Phonte that evokes the band's "Connected" era, while the epic opener "The Last Fall" finds Phonte singing some of his most cynical lyrics to date ("Love is at worst an excuse/at best it's a truce...") over a frenzied Nicolay production jammed with layers of strings, guitars, and dense choral harmonies.

"I think every band reaches that point when they come into their own and find a sound that is distinctively theirs," says Phonte in reference to the album's title. "The title refers to me and Nic's journey to find our own unique space within this vast musical landscape. The biggest challenge as a musician is to find that 'thing' that makes you who you are. But I think we're getting there, and we're finding our way more and more with each record."

Featuring guest appearances from longtime contributors YahZarah, Darien Brockington, Zo! and Median, and also relative newcomers Chantae Cann and Jesse Boykins III, "Authenticity" hits stores 10/12 on +FE Music.

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Connected is a unique listening experience, one fusing jazz, hip-hop, R&B, and other musical styles into an enjoyable whole of easy listening sounds. BBE. 2005.

Review

"A potent mix of battle-ready lyricism, falsetto crooning and European ambient groove." -- The Source



"An exemplary program of neo-Soulquarian groovology" --XXL

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The fourth genre defying album from Grammy Nominated alt-R&B duo of Phonte and Nicolay. Includes appearances from +FE Music mainstays Zo!, Jeanne Jolly, and many more surprises…

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Superstar guitarists Paul Brown and Marc Antoine have joined forces to present this all-new collaborative collection exploring their longtime passions for a wide variety of influences including pop, jazz, old school R&B, soul-jazz, Brazilian and Latin music.

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Brand New

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1 x Vinyl LP, Album

US 1980