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Monica After The Storm Zip 20: Why It's One of the Best R&B Albums of the 2000s



After the Storm is the fourth studio album by American singer Monica. It was first released on June 17, 2003 through J Records. Created over a period of three years, in which Monica experienced personal struggles and its original version, All Eyez on Me, was delayed numerous times following the moderate success of single "All Eyez on Me" as well as the leak to Internet file-sharing services and heavy bootlegging after its Japan-wide release, Monica decided to scrap most of the album in favor of new material for which she consulted new collaborators such as Missy Elliott who would receive executive producer credit due to her predominant share of contributions on the album.


In the following month, personal tribulations put a temporary halt on the album's production, when her friend and former boyfriend Jarvis "Knot" Weems committed suicide.[6] Knot left behind a daughter from a previous relationship, who Monica took into care after going into hiatus.[7] She eventually resumed work on her third album in fall 2001, involving her usual stable of producers such as Dallas Austin, production team Soulshock & Karlin, Jermaine Dupri, and Rodney Jerkins and his Darkchild crew.[8] Though originally expected to be released worldwide, All Eyez on Me received a wide release on October 21, 2002 in Japan only.[9] The set was initially scheduled for a US release in July 2002 and then pushed back to September before a final November 12 release date.[8][10] At the time it was scheduled for domestic release However, All Eyez on Me had been heavily bootlegged in Japan and become widely available through Internet file-sharing services.[6] In addition, the first two singles from the project, "All Eyez on Me" and "Too Hood," had experienced moderate chart success.[6]




Monica After The Storm Zip 20



With the market evolving very quickly and the sound of urban radio shifting to hip hop and edgier artistry,[11] J Records asked Monica to substantially reconstruct the record with a host of new producers, leading to the cancellation of the US release of All Eyez on Me.[11] After the commercial failure of original lead single "All Eyez on Me," a sunny, upbeat groove with a pop feel of which the label thought that it had misled audiences into believing that she was trying to break away from her core R&B fan base with her new album,[11] Monica agreed that she would once again return to the studio, significantly raising the financial stakes of the project.[11] Fresh from the success of her album Under Construction (2002), the label consulted rapper-producer Missy Elliott to work with her.[11] While the pair had never worked together before, Monica, who had felt increasingly frustrated that the album still didn't reflect where she wanted to go artistically after a series of unfruitful recording sessions, instantly connected with Elliott after their first night in a studio in Miami where the rapper had played demos with old-school soul sounds to her.[11]


Elliott recorded three full-length songs with Monica that dramatically altered the course of the album and prompted J Records to replace former executive producer Jermaine Dupri with her.[6] Additional reording sessions were set up with producers BAM & Ryan, Jasper DaFatso, and Jazze Pha,[6] with rappers DMX, Dirtbag, Busta Rhymes and Mia X, and singers Tweet and Tyrese joining.[12] Labelmate Mýa was originally set to lend her voice to a track, but was eventually replaced by Faith Evans; the untitled song did not, however, make the final track listing.[12] Although the album was still planned to be titled All Eyez on Me until its completion, the singer decided to change the album title to a more personal one after years of private tribulations: "I wanted this to be more of my testimony," Monica told Jet Magazine in 2003.[13] "I feel blessed to still be here after a lot of things that I've been through. I wanted to share certain things with people. Not so much as what I've been through, but how I made it through. That's what the album reflects [...] It's really the reason I titled my album After the Storm."[14] In 2016, she further commented: "Everything about After the Storm was about my life after the hardship. This album came when I felt whole enough to make a record again."[15]


Rodney Jerkins-produced "Ain't Gonna Cry No More" was described as an upbeat "angry kiss-off."[24] "Go to Bed Mad," a duet with singer Tyrese, is a "soulful" and "heartfelt jam" which has a couple asking each other to compromise after an argument before they go to bed at night.[26] On pop ballad "Hurts the Most," another Soulshock and Karlin contribution, consisting of acoustic guitars and an understated drum pattern,[26] Monica says goodbye to a former lover who has entered a new relationship since their last meeting, though she still pines for him.[24] Jazze Pha-produced "That's My Man" is an acoustic-guitar-laced mid-tempo track, talking about a woman's proudness of her man.[18] The standard edition of After the Storm ends with "Outro," a remix version of "So Gone," that features rapper Busta Rhymes as well as more prominent background vocals from singer Tweet.[21] Monica amitted that she was initially intimidated by recording her rhymes alongside Rhymes.[21] Bonus track "Too Hood," an upbeat song produced and featuring Dupri, was described as "an image-mongering song in which Monica tells a guy who's not rough enough that she's 'too hood' for" him.[24]


Vanessa Jones from Entertainment Weekly also called the non-Elliott-produced material mediocre, noting that "super producer Missy Elliott tarts things up with a trio of streetwise party anthems. Otherwise, in between are bland ballads and derivative midtempo tunes that often fail to match the creative heights of Monica's lush, church-trained voice. Only on a four-track bonus CD do vocals and music achieve equal footing as the singer moves beyond hackneyed beats to explore gospel, hip-hop, and quiet-storm grooves."[31] Natalie Nichols of the Los Angeles Times also complimented Elliott's input on the album. She added that "great R&B moments have come from singers who dwell on tragedy as intensely as on overcoming. Clearly, the title After the Storm implies moving on rather than wallowing, but the album too often feels generic, despite the personal sentiments Monica lets out [...] So maybe she should've dwelt a little more, at that."[1]


The park was named after Leo Carrillo (1880-1961), actor, preservationist and conservationist. Leo Carrillo served on the California Beach and Parks commission for eighteen years, and was instrumental in the state's acquisition of the Hearst property at San Simeon. He was related by blood and marriage to a long line of distinguished original Californians. Leo's greatest fame came from his portrayal of Pancho, the sidekick to Duncan Renaldo's Cisco Kid, an early 1950's TV series.


Winter storms pummeled a Capistrano Beach boardwalk, turning the idyllic shoreline into a construction zone as bulldozers rushed to stack boulders into a barricade. From San Diego to Humboldt counties, homeowners scramble to fend off increasing erosion and storm surges, pleading with officials for bigger seawalls that can hold back the even bigger ocean.


Walking along Esplanade Avenue one recent afternoon, Keener points to the orange tape and bits of foundation still poking out from where apartment buildings once stood. Only the odd-numbered homes on this block remain, the even-numbered side making way for sweeping ocean views.


But the more hazardous it gets, the more the public could pay: As rising seas and storms exacerbate property damage, experts worry that the inability of insurers to charge prices that reflect actual risk could lead them to stop offering coverage in California.


Updating this seawall will cost at least $2 billion, probably much more. Scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey recently found that the cost of building levees, seawalls and other measures to withstand 6 feet of sea level rise and a 100-year storm could cost as much as $450 billion for San Francisco Bay.


Officials in Ventura County spent nearly two decades getting all the pieces in place to turn an eroding parking lot and collapsing bike path into a cobble beach backed by vegetated dunes. This has fended off storm surges, and the beach is now one of the most popular in the county.


Any human disruption to this river of sand could reveal itself elsewhere. Pacifica may be eroding so quickly in part because of all the sand dredging farther up the coast in San Francisco Bay. Many Malibu beaches have lost significant amounts of sand after the building of Pacific Coast Highway. In Santa Monica, fresh sediment rarely reaches the coast now that humans have dammed up the creeks and turned the L.A. River into a concrete channel.


The morning after the worst of the surge, Imperial Beach Mayor Serge Dedina parked his Prius and hopped around puddles still pooling down Seacoast Drive. Waves, still breaking over the rock barriers, spewed sand across the road. A maintenance worker sprinted toward the nearest driveway, startled by yet another rush of water.


Her husband, an architect, made a few additions to their home as the bluff continued to erode about a foot a year. They put up a seawall. But then in the winter of 1997, one big storm took out the entire cliffside. Officials came in and declared an emergency.


Cape Fear Community College will close at all campus locations for students, faculty, and staff in anticipation of inclement weather resulting from hurricane/tropical storm Isaias beginning noon Monday, Aug. 3 through Tuesday, Aug. 4. 2ff7e9595c


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