Rosebuds

from the LP The Hollywood Recordings, Babygrande Records, 2007



“…sprinkle some cosmic dust baby…” What would happen if Ali Shaheed Muhammad came to meet George Clinton & D’Angelo out at Prince’s summer pad on Neptune? Apart from some philosophizing, toking & pontificating (respectively), one could be relatively sure that the beats would come fresh enough to keep everybody warm---well, L.A. underground superheroes, the Sa-Ra Creative Partners, seem to mine the heady depths in pursuit of a fitting soundtrack for said encounter, employing all manner of skronking electronics and soothingly lusty touches in order to bring the funk, proper. It’s a difficult balance, to sound both polished and organic at the same time, but these cats make that intricate contrast work to their advantage, never too clean & never too skeezy; admittedly, they don’t reach the dizzying heights found in this sizzling cut all across the album, “…but can y’all niggas get down though…?” Indeed, they can.