mya: it's all about me.

dl: MYA f/ SISQO - It's All About Me (alt)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Take It Back Thursday...uh, is a little late this week. I suppose since this is the first time I've done this, I could have just called it Take It Back Friday, but let's not get into that. In this series of posts, I will be covering songs of the past, which I will loosely define as anything from the 1930s to last year. Because sometimes it just gets damn boring writing about new shit. When possible, I will try to give updates on where the artist's career is now.

Mya's voice first reached our ears on the chorus of the 1998 single "Ghetto Supastar (That Is What You Are)", but her first proper release as a solo artist was the Sisqo-assisted bedroom jam "It's All About Me". I'll never forget the tone which she delivers the opening lines, "I cook your dinner, I wash your clothes. Baby hell no, that's not the way it goes. It's all about me tonight." When paired with the video's visuals of that red mini-skirt and Ms. Harrison's seductive dance moves, it was enough to make any 13 year-old boy's mind wander. I mean, she was basically making love to the air around her in a way that makes the phrase "making love" not sound revolting.

As far as vocals go, Mya's most memorable moments are her sexiest--"It's All About Me", "My Love Is Like...Wo!". Of the three singers featured on 2001's "Lady Marmalade", Mya blatantly has the weakest voice after Pink and Christina Aguilera, but she naturally slips into the burlesque role by playing up her sex kitten image. None of the three singles ("Ayo", "Lock U Down", "Ridin") released to promote Mya's 2007 album Liberation managed to recapture this carnal magic, and I indirectly consider this the reason the album was shelved in the US.

After severing her ties with Motown, Mya has signed to Manhattan Records and recently released Sugar & Spice in Japan. The new album finds Mya destroying Diana King's "Shy Guy", relying far too much on cheesy dance tracks and trying to bring her sexy back with the Ne-Yo penned "Paradise". It leaves me wondering what would have happened if Sisqo had never gone solo and made the "Thong Song", leaving him more time to produce sultry songs for Mya and less time to host Sisqo's Shakedown.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

BONER TRACK: MYA - Shy Guy (Diana King cover) (alt)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

- BUY IT - SITE IT - SPACE IT - WIK IT - HYPE IT -

mya: liberated.

MYA has this tendency to disappear for a year or two, only to pop back onto the music scene unexpected with some hotness.

She stormed onto the hip-hop scene with the help of Sisqo in 1998 with her debut album Mya. This led into successful soundtrack singles "Ghetto Superstar" (Bulworth) and "Take Me There" (Rugrats: The Movie). She disappeared for two years, returning full force with hits like "The Best of Me (remix)" and "The Case of the Ex". A year later we got "Lady Marmalade" and then...Poof! She was gone again. Well, she went on to do some acting that wasn't too memorable...so she might as well have been gone. She returned two years after the success of "Lady Marmalade" with Moodring, her least successful album to this date. Either way, this album brought us the sexalicious video for "My Love is Like...Wo!", and I consider that a success.

Now, after three years in hiding, word is that she'll be back this summer with a new album called Liberation. The album boasts production by Dr. Dre, Scott Storch, and Lil Jon...but as we know, great producers do not a good album make. I'm curious to see what Mya comes up with as a final product. She's always seemed a little confused to me about whether she wants to appeal to a TRL audience or an urban audience. Sometimes I wonder if she realizes that she once appealed to both...and if she could just find that formula again, she'd be set.

Take a listen here at the moneyshot!! to some tunes off of the upcoming Liberation of Mya. I wish her luck, but only because she once wrote a song called "If You Died I Wouldn't Cry Because You Never Loved Me Anyway".

DOWNLOAD: MYA f/ EVE- I Am
DOWNLOAD: MYA- One Night

BUY Mood Ring, BUY Fear of Flying, BUY Mya

BLOGWATCH: I guess i'm floating's Nathaniel has a great reinterpretation of Lauryn Hill by Devendra Banhart. You ain't no picasso brings us that new Bishop Allen for the month of June. Stereogum leads us to a leak of Justin Timberlake's new single "Sexyback".