Soundbite: Kenny Neal 'Lets Life Flow'; G-Unit terminates on sight

Kenny Neal 'Let Life Flow' (Blind Pig Records)

Kenny Neal begins his first solo album in seven years with the CD’s title track. The passion in his voice is haunting, and it’s an example of what sets blues apart from other musical styles. Sure, anyone can play the notes: It’s how they play those notes that gives music the necessary emotion to call it authentic blues.

Neal wrote the song under incomprehensible circumstances: In less than two years, four of the closest people around him died. Neal’s father, Raful, died of cancer, his sister was murdered, and a week later, drummer and 18-year friend Kennard Johnson died. Neal’s brother Ronnie died of hepatitis C, and soon afterward Kenny himself was diagnosed with the disease.

Neal was too sick to get out of bed when he wrote “Let Life Flow” on his guitar, as Blues Revue reported and a Blind Pig Records spokeswoman confirmed.

Life is so unpredictable; that’s the way it is.

Gets a little hard to bear sometimes; things out of nowhere blow your mind.

One thing I know for sure; You got to let life flow.

Neal plays his own style. It’s a modern rather than traditional sound.

He grew up in Louisiana in a musical family. (Two of his brothers play in his band.) He then developed a Chicago blues sound by touring for several years with Buddy Guy.

Blind Pig Records President Edward Chmelewski signed Neal after watching his public access television blues show in Palo Alto.

CHECK THIS OUT: Congratulations to Kenny Neal, and not just for releasing a great album: Doctors have given him a clean bill of health.

G-Unit, ‘T.O.S.: Terminate On Sight’ (G-Unit/Interscope)

50 Cent’s ruthless streak has been well documented. He’s had several very public spats with appears (Ja Rule, Fat Joe, The Game) and actresses (Vivica Fox). And he’s even booted former protege Young Buck from the actual G-Unit group — now officially just 50, Lloyd Banks and Tony Yayo.

(Recently, 50 circulated a taped conversation of Buck crying and begging him for money. Buck has retaliated with a diss track called “Taped Conversation.”)

That backstory gives much needed context to the hardcore, synth-heavy beats of “T.O.S.: Terminate on Sight,” G-Unit’s second group album. The disc is just as angry and aggressive as 50 seems these days. Over the muddy bass line of disc opener, “Straight Outta Southside,” 50 barks his guntalk: “I’m Charles Bronson, Dirty Harry with the cannon/ you shooting blanks, you ain’t hit/ ... I’m still standing.”

Meanwhile, throughout the disc, Banks and Yayo contribute equally cocky boasts. “Cartier glasses, Cartier belt/ Cartier watch tell me time somewhere else/ like Germany, Sweden or Serbia” brags Yayo over the keyboard stabs of “Piano Man.”

At 18 tracks of similar testosterone-charged bombast, the disc gets tiresome for all but the G-Unit loyalist. Yet 50 is savvy. He adds slight variety to the mix — dancehall star Mavado on the reggae-tinged “Let It Go” and requisite thug love jams (“I Like The Way She Do It,” “Close To Me,” “Kitty Kat”). And even Young Buck (who’s still signed to G-Unit Records) is featured on a few mediocre cameos despite the beef. 50’s merely covering his bases by placing business before personal concerns, as the closing song title states: “Money Make the World Go Round.”

CHECK THIS OUT: Over the deceptively bouncy drum kicks of “You So Tough,” 50’s chilling hook mocks an unnamed block bully: “You so tough/ tough until your heartbeat stop/ the tray-pound pop/ your arteries shot/ you bleeding in shock/ get in the pine box.”

— Brett Thomas,The Associated Press