NEW YORK (AP) — Muni Longa is perfectly aware of the preciousness of time and its unpredictability. In some ways, the burden of this idea is intertwined with her music with songs like “30s,” “Time Machine” and her mega-hit “Hrs & Hrs.” Life can move at an unforgiving pace, which is why the Grammy winner works as if her profession is on credit.

“Many years ago I had the opportunity to work with Kendrick (Lamar) and I worked with another artist. So I kept pushing it away, asking, “Can we move this session?” This was before he had ‘Pools’… and then he blew up.” recalls the Grammy Award winner. “I understand what it feels like to feel like you’ve missed out or that you won’t get this chance again… I’ll never forget it, ever.”

Carpe diem is all the time on the forefront of Long’s mind, and he recently released an album her latest project “Revenge” the follow-up to her 2022 debut album Public Displays of Affection: The Album, which won a Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance for “Hrs & Hrs.” Her latest creation survived the sophomore slump. “Made for Me” the viral tender ballad, ambiguously inspired by her son, peaked at number 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed at primary on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay chart for seven weeks. (Long revealed this week that it was a massive hit is not eligible for the Grammy Awards resulting from release date).

As R&B has experienced a mainstream resurgence, Long is credited as considered one of the genre’s standard-bearers driving its comeback.

“I can definitely gauge the impact I have on the culture… and not just with a certain demographic. They’re children. They are older women. They’re Christian groups — sometimes they don’t listen to secular music like that, (but) they listen to mine,” Long said. “Sometimes they even sing in the pulpit: ‘I could praise You for hours.’ It’s amazing – even Made for Me too.”

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Intersecting the present era of vibes, party R&B, and the prevailing vibe of melodic rap with a more back-to-basics, feel-on-the-sleeve sound, many fans and critics alike consider that the 14-track project, which features writing from industry titans like The Dream, Jermaine Dupri, Bryan-Michael Cox and Tricky Stewart, and reporting by rap star GloRilla, is considered one of the best R&B releases of the yr. Long believes it too.

“We really put a lot of effort into this music. We cared about instruments and lyrics. This is one of the first times I went back and fixed the lyrics,” said Long, whose “Make Me Forget” topped Billboard’s Adult R&B chart and whose “Ruined Me” entered the highest 10 on the chart this week. “People turn towards light and love… I believe in fairy tales.”

But not all fairy tales end happily. During the album’s release, Long revealed that her nearly ten-year marriage to husband and business partner Raysean Hairston had been tumultuous. Her marital problems, and proving to industry critics that her viral hits and talent were no fluke, set the tone for the project – selecting happiness over bitterness – making it much more personal than her first album.

“Some songs I just can’t sing, and they’re even very difficult to listen to. The first time I cried in the studio while I was making something was on this album and I didn’t like that feeling, so I didn’t do it again,” said the 36-year-old, recalling her debut. “Through therapy and counseling and prayer and meditation and all of that, I’ve developed tools to help me feel my feelings and deal with and process issues that I may have – trauma and drama, as I like to call it. And this album is a way for me to process.”

Long recently wrapped select dates on Chris Brown’s 11:11 tour and is struggling with marital issues. Her goal is peace, she said, adding that a lupus diagnosis doesn’t promote stress. Long emphasizes that she didn’t use the term “divorce,” but “when you talk about ending something, people do it in a lot of different ways.” The talented singer-songwriter spent over 15 years behind the scenes as Priscilla Renea, writing hits for powerhouses reminiscent of Mariah Carey, Rihanna, Ariana Grande and Kelly Clarkson, before changing her name to Muni Long in 2020. But increasingly frustrated with industry politics and unsure of what could be her solo success, Long almost went all the way in which.

“At the end of the day, it’s about not giving up. It’s about not giving up. In the end, time will show you that you get these things because you were prepared,” Long said. “At first I had the right. I thought that because I was talented, people should give me things. And now, on the other hand, I work for everything.”

NEW YORK (AP) – When he won a Grammy Jon Batiste he was a toddler of, say, 9 or 10, moving between musical worlds – through the day he participated in local piano competitions and then “performed in nightclubs in the heart of New Orleans.”

Free from the rigidity of the genre, but additionally committed to exploring it, his tastes intertwined. He found himself transforming canonized classical works into blues or gospel songs, injecting them with a style-independent spirituality became famous. On November 15, Batiste will release his first album of solo piano pieces, a group of similar compositions.

Entitled “Beethoven Blues (Batiste Piano Series, Vol. 1),” the 11-song album finds Batiste in a way collaborating with Beethoven, transforming the German pianist’s immediately recognizable works into something seamless that spans musical stories. It begins with the lead single “Für Elise-Batiste” with a straightforward intro, known all over the world as one of the primary pieces of music that beginners learn on the piano, then transforms the song into a full of life blues.

“My private practice has always been about honoring, of course, but also demystifying the mythology associated with these composers,” he told The Associated Press in an interview ahead of Wednesday’s album announcement.

The album was created through a process called “spontaneous composition”, which he says is a lost art in classical music. It’s improvisation; Batiste sits on the piano and interpolates Beethoven’s masterpieces to make them his own.

“The approach is to think about what the approach would be if we were both talking to Beethoven, but also if Beethoven himself was here today, sitting at the piano?” he explained. “And combining, you know, my approach to artistry and creativity with my imagined approach to how a contemporary Beethoven would approach these works.”

He said there may be a divide in popular understanding of music, where “pristine, preserved and European” genres are seen as more beneficial than “something black, sweaty and improvised.” This album, like most of his work, destroys assumptions.

Contrary to what many might think, Batiste stated that Beethoven’s rhythms were African. “On a basic technical level, he does what African musical ingenuity delivered to the world, which is to play two and three meters at the identical time, almost on a regular basis. He plays in two different time signatures without delay, almost exclusively,” he said.

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“When you hear a drum circle, you know, the African diasporic tradition of playing together in time, you hear a lot of different time signatures playing at the same time,” he continued. “Overall, it combines the entire practice of classical and symphonic music with a deeply African rhythmic practice, making it refined.”

“Beethoven Blues” honors this complexity. “I am deeply repelled by classism and the cultural system we have created that demeans some and elevates others. And ultimately, what appeals to me the most is how excellence transcends race,” he said.

Given their spontaneous nature, when these songs are performed live, they are going to never sound exactly like they do on record and no two sets can be the identical. “If you came and saw me perform these works 10 times in a row, you would hear not only a new version of Beethoven, but also a completely new Beethoven concerto,” he said.

“Beethoven Blues” is the primary in a series of pianos – what number of will there be, in what timeframe and what’s going to they appear like? Well, he keeps his options open.

“The themes of the piano series will be based on, you know, what is current to me at this point in my development, what I am exploring in terms of my artistry. It could be another series based on a composer,” he said.

“Or it could be something else entirely.”

Bobby Brown is paying tribute to his late ex-mother-in-law, Cissy Houston. On Monday, October 7, the mother of Whitney Houston, a music icon on the proper, died on the age of 91. In light of the news, the New Edition star and his wife Alicia Etheredge-Brown expressed their condolences: according to People magazine.

“I send love and blessings to the Houston family on this great loss,” Brown told the publication. “May he rest in Peace and Power. The Browns.

Brown was married to Cissy’s daughter, the late Whitney Houston, from 1992 to 2007. Known for his or her turbulent relationship, the couple, as well as to marital problems, also struggled with alcoholism and addiction. Over the course of their 15 years of marriage, their individual struggles with addictions worsened and in April 2007, they divorced.

After multiple attempts at rehabilitation, Houston died in 2012 after by accident drowning in a bath on the Beverly Hills Hotel on the eve of that 12 months’s Grammy Awards. After her daughter’s death, Cissy remained very protective of Whitney’s legacy. So much in order that she criticized her former son-in-law for the “disturbing” way he talked about his relationship with Whitney in his “20/20” interview 2016.

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“I am deeply disappointed that this interview, intended to promote Bobby’s life story, seemed more like an expose of Whitney’s life,” Cissy said. Esencja Magazine after the interview. “My problem with Bobby has always been that he became her husband, but not her helper or protector.”

“Our hearts are filled with pain and sadness. (We have lost) the mother of our family,” Pat Houston said in a statement, noting Cissy’s “unparalleled” impact on music and culture. “Cissy’s mother was a strong and prominent figure in our lives. A woman of deep faith and conviction who cared deeply about family, service and community. “Her seventy-plus-decade career in music and entertainment will remain at the center of our hearts.”

She continued, “We are blessed and grateful that God allowed her to spend so many years with us and we are grateful for all the valuable life lessons she taught us. May he rest in peace with his daughter Whitney and granddaughter Bobbi Kristina and other loving family members.”