Bilal comes through with "West Side Girl" the second single from his forthcoming album A Love Surreal just about a month on from the video release for "Back To Love." Judging from the title you might expect this wold be some ol' "I feel pretty/I just met a girl named Maria" type stuff but, no. It is actually a funky synthesizer driven throwback to the early 80s that recalls the most jammable work of the extended Parliament-Funkadelic family--think "Frantic Moment" by Eddie Hazel, or maybe Bootsy's "Working For My Baby" and you got the general vibe. As Bilal himself told Billboard:
"'West Side Girl' is a feel good, funky groove party jam created by me and my soul brothers, [producer] Shafiq Husayn and [co-writer] Stephen "Thundercat" Bruner."
Only had the opportunity to listen to it obsessively 3 or 4 times but so far those listens bear out Bilal's self-analysis and I can already tell that I'm gonna have the phrase:
"You ain't gotta talk a lick / body talk a lotta sh*t..."
In my head more or less permanently. Stream below and cherchez la femme on the full album, now slated to drop on February 26th.
