Hello Shufflers! Welcome to a new release day for Infinite Shuffle! I realized that getting people to look at their email on a Saturday is a big ask. I also get to use NFL Sunday to work on this newsletter rather than during the workweek.

I hope this is a better situation for all of you lovely listeners!

Artist of the Week: Aries

This is easily one of my favorite artists out now. Aries’ story is great and I really admire his creative vision that oozes over everything he does. Two years ago, I came across his channel when he was getting popular from some of his early Youtube videos where he would remake the beats of popular songs in a creative way.

Whether doing it as a challenge or just trying to do them in 2 minutes, his musical talents have always been superb and shine throughout his original songs. His recent release “Fool’s Gold” is incredible and has me amped up for whatever project he’s releasing next.

I also replay his last project a lot. Which reminds me.

Project of the week: WELCOME HOME (2019)

This is a nice, short, and sweet project that showcases the many talents of Aries. From RACECAR TO SAYONARA, Aries provides catchy hooks with great vocals and fire lyrics to boot. His production chops often take center stage as you can tell that all of these beats are very suitable to his style.

He also has some of the best music videos out. They’re never over the top and they perfectly support his moods.

Alright, let’s get to the rest of this week’s list!

Dan Fogelberg - Same Old Lang Syne

This is one of the saddest Christmas songs out and I feel like we don’t talk about this enough. The lyrics really hit different when you have love for a certain someone even when it might not have worked out in the long run. Here’s a live version of the song that makes me tear up every time.

The only other Christmas songs that get me like this are “Christmas Shoes” and “Believe” by Josh Groban.

A Taste Of Honey - Boogie Oogie Oogie

IF YOU THINK THAT YOU’RE TOO COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL TO BOOGIE!

BOY OH BOY HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I was a kid, I was given an iPod nano but my parents made it so that I wasn’t able to buy explicit music off of Itunes. Sometimes when I would sync my nano, I’d get random ass songs from my parent’s library as well. That’s how I found out about this song. As frustrating as it was not being able to buy Laffy Taffy by D4L as an 11-year-old, songs like this made it a little bit better.

Childish Gambino ft. 21 Savage, Ink, Kadhja Bonet - 12.38

As annoying as it is trying to go through an album where most of the song titles are numbers, Gambino has a gem with the song ‘12.38’. It really sounds like Gambino and company are having fun with this one and that’s so refreshing to hear. With the constant deleting of tweets and being off the grid most of the time, it seems like Gambino loves this mysterious form of music marketing. It works well for him most of the time.

You can tell that I really like this song because it’s over 6 minutes long and I’m not complaining about it.

DAY 26 - GOT ME GOING

Man. 13-year-old me thought I was doing something memorizing the words and pretending to dance like Tom Dubois in the Boondocks.

Anyway, “Got me Going” is a classic and I will not hear otherwise.

BKTHERULA - TWEAKIN' TOGETHER

“Tweakin’ Together” is so short but so much fun to just chill out with. The music video makes me miss outside with the homies very much. Fuck man, we really lost a whole year to a pandemic. That’s tough. BKTHERULA is someone we should all get to know and listen to. If you haven’t heard of her, go listen to Nirvana and Love Santana right now.

Sample of the Week: Let’s look at Chun Li

No, not the Nicki Minaj song.

Today, we’re talking about the 2012 Wale effort that comes from the project “Folarin”. In addition to a sample from newsletter favorite Dexter Wansel, the song also samples a sound effect from Street Fighter Character Chun Li!

(Go to 1:11)

I want to shout out Cardo, the producer of this track because this is my favorite song from my favorite Wale project. Wale has some top tier sample work on his albums. I’m talking about More About Nothing, Summer On Sunset and everywhere in between. I still think Wale’s discography is very underrated when you take a look at all of the projects that he’s given us.

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