Saturday, November 20, 2010 at 8:33PM 
Unreleased track by Blame One & Aloe Blacc. One of my favourite new rappers and my favourite soul singer. Smashing track.
Aloe Blacc, Blame One, Hip-Hop in Aside Wednesday, November 3, 2010 at 5:52PM 
Aloe Blacc covers a James Carr classic for Carhartt’s Soul compilation with the same name. This guy is just too good.
Aloe Blacc, Cover, James Carr, Soul in Aside Tuesday, October 19, 2010 at 12:58PM 
Here is my favourite track from Raashan Ahmad’s new album, For What You’ve Lost. It features my favourite man at the moment, Aloe Blacc and Gift Of Gab. The album is rooted in classic hip hop tradition as well as jazz, soul and funk while continuing to push musical boundaries into the future of the genre. Had it on repeat for the past couple of days now. Go and support real music.
Aloe Blacc, Gift Of Gab, Hip-Hop, Raashan Ahmad, Soul in Aside Monday, October 11, 2010 at 6:23PM Need to see this man live, as soon as possible. So cool and such an effortlessly brilliant performer.
Aloe Blacc, Live, R&B, Soul, Video Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 12:14PM Amazing video for an amazing track by an amazing artist.
Aloe Blacc, Good Things, R&B, Soul, Stones Throw, Video Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 10:30PM Miguel Atwood-Ferguson Ensemble and Aloe Blacc pay tribute to Guru. They perform an arrangement of Gang Starr’s “Betrayal”. Simply incredible.
Aloe Blacc, Classic, Hip-Hop, Live, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, Orchestra, Soul, Tribute, Video Wednesday, September 1, 2010 at 3:29PM 
This is amazing. One of my favourite artists in the world being remixed/edited by one of my favourite house DJ’s/producers in the world. Definitely be using this in my next mix.
Saturday, August 28, 2010 at 1:28AM Can’t begin to explain how much I love this man. Hopefully the album will do as well as it deserves to.
Aloe Blacc, Live, Politician, Stones Throw, Video Aloe Blacc, Good Things, Politician, Soul, Stones Throw, Video Saturday, July 17, 2010 at 8:29PM 
Right, so after all of the issues with the ‘fake leak’, we now have all of the legitimate information regarding the new Aloe Blacc album, Good Things. Above is the official cover and after the jump is the official tracklist and a few words from the man himself. Below is a rough version of my favourite track from the album, Mama Hold My Hand. Hopefully they haven’t changed the final cut much, because this is still one of my favourite songs of 2010.
“My purpose for music is positive social change,” says Orange County, California native Aloe Blacc. “Even if the music itself does not explicitly express anything that may signify positive social change, the product of the music will.” He is speaking in general terms regarding his career, but more specifically about the circumstances surrounding his upcoming album, Good Things, co-written by the versatile vocalist and songwriter in conjunction with the in-house production team at Truth & Soul Records.
Good Things marks a shift in methodology from personal to political for Aloe, who refers to the project as his report on present conditions—joblessness, homeless, the misappropriation of wealth, pillaging of resources, and a universal lack of compassion from the capitalism at-large under which we all function, but some struggle to survive. Song titles such as “You Make Me Smile” and “Miss Fortune,” coupled with airy, ethereal production from Truth & Soul’s Leon Michels and Jeff Silverman mask a foreboding undercurrent in which Aloe crafts lyrics both thoughtful and thought-provoking. Nowhere is this more evident than on lead single, “I Need a Dollar”—commissioned by HBO as the theme music for the series How to Make It in America—because ultimately, that is how to make it in America.
The first-generation American offspring of Panamanian parents, Aloe has become what writer and activist Amiri Baraka (nee Leroi Jones) once said of John Coltrane. He is a singular “scope of feeling…a more fixed traveler” who has found cohesion in art and life. The path from his 2006 debut, the multi-genre Shine Through, to Good Things is akin to the maturation of Marvin Gaye between That’s the Way Love Is and the What’s Going On masterwork that followed. Aloe has never purported to be any heir to Gaye, but musically, Good Things and What’s Going On are companion pieces as both albums establish a character for the artists that sets them apart from the sea of performers making very vivid and discernible—yet normative and conformist—statements about who they are and what they do. Good Things is a definitive declaration that places Aloe directly in the framework of modern soul.
At the heart of this musical character is a recession-age Robin Hood, whose goal is to sell and profit from his wares with hope of freeing the less fortunate from the capitalist system that serves as both their oppressor and his motivation. A 2001 graduate of the University of Southern California, Aloe credits a myriad of influences—transcendentalist scholars Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson, French existentialism, Oprah Winfrey, Tavis Smiley, Cornel West—with leading him from the inner streams of consciousness he possessed as an MC early in his career, to a more disciplined approach to songwriting, and now, the desire to affect change and induce compassion by way of his own success. It is his grand scheme, which, not coincidentally, is also the name of his backing band (The Grand Scheme). The key is compromise and understanding the power of popular art. Aloe is willing to put the gloves on and engage in the marketplace. Good things lie ahead.
– Ronnie Reese
Album artwork by Aloe Blacc
Track List:
01. I Need A Dollar
02. Green Lights
03. Hey Brother
04. Miss Fortune
05. Life So Hard
06. Take Me Back
07. Femme Fatale
08. Loving You Is Killing Me
09. Good Things
10. You Make Me Smile
11. If I
12. Mama Hold My Hand
13. Politician (Reprise)
Aloe Blacc, Good Things, Soul, Stones Throw in Aside 