page_title: Love for Sale (Bilal album)
section_title: Delays and leak
hierarchical_section_title: Love for Sale (Bilal album) / Delays and leak
caption_attribution_description: Blue Note (New York)
context_page_description: Love for Sale is the unreleased second studio album by the American singer-songwriter Bilal. It was recorded from 2001 to 2003 at Electric Lady Studios in New York during the height of the Soulquarians era, a period in the studio's history marked by the frequent and innovative recording activity of that musical collective, in which Bilal was a member. Written and produced mainly by the singer, the album was a departure from the producer-driven, hip hop-influenced neo soul music of 1st Born Second, his moderately successful debut album for Interscope Records.
  Bilal pursued a more raw and independent direction with Love for Sale, which he mostly composed on piano. At Electric Lady, he held improvisatory jam sessions with a live band featuring the trumpeter Leron Thomas, the drummer Steve McKie, and the pianist Robert Glasper, one of several former classmates the singer enlisted from New York's New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music. With the assistance of a few select producers, such as Dr. Dre and Soulquarians member J Dilla, Bilal experimented with different recording techniques, longer free-form compositions, and arrangements drawn from jazz and the blues.
context_section_description: After the recording's completion in 2003, Bilal presented the album to Interscope executives, who responded negatively to its avant-garde direction. "They really felt the record was kind of dark and not really sexy", he tells The Root. "They were like, 'this shit is wack, this sounds like some dark, bluesy, muddy, weird shit'." The production company contracting him at the time offered a similar reaction. "They kept saying 'It's so fucked up and weird'", the singer explains. "Everybody except my band was like 'I don't know. This shit is so dark.'" He also previewed the album to another record executive, who responded by questioning his singing abilities, frustrating him further.
  Interscope wanted Bilal to record new songs, particularly a suitable single. Unwilling to start anew, he continued to lobby the album, leading to several delays and disputes with the label. He also worked on new parts to some of the album's recordings, including "Gotsta Be Cool". He composed a string section with Leron Thomas in the style of jazz and opera, while having a friend from the New School's classical department record operatic vocals for the song, the result of which Bilal compared to the singer Jean Carn's collaborations with her pianist husband Doug. "But the label was just like, 'what the hell are you doing?'", he recalls. "I went to battle on that album on a daily basis, which I felt was kind of stupid because I felt the music was really dope, and most people I was playing it for were feeling it and loving it." The audio engineer Russell Elevado, who mixed a few of the songs around 2004, recalls Interscope insisting the singer return to the studio and record more material. Bilal cites this compounding conflict with the label as his "weakest point" as an artist.
  In mid 2005, Bilal premiered a few of the album's songs at an event in Philadelphia hosted by the Beat Society producers showcase. Demonstrating a stylistic departure from his first album, the premier started a growing buzz about Love for Sale. Around this time, he played the Celebrate Brooklyn! festival's summer concert series, performing "All for Love" from the album. According to Dana Bingham, a music blogger who attended the show and later interviewed Bilal, Love for Sale was expected in September of that year, but the release did not materialize. In January 2006, he performed the same song as a guest vocalist for Glasper's Jabane Ensemble at the Blue Note Jazz Club in New York. According to Elevado, the Blue Note was a five-night series featuring Common, Badu, and Musiq Soulchild among its nightly guests, with Bilal utilizing a jazz improvisation concept and processing his singing voice through different effects pedals. By this time, the singer was still mixing the album in the studio, nearing its completion. A promotional copy had also been manufactured on vinyl.
  In early 2006, a preliminary mix of Love for Sale mysteriously appeared on the Internet, originally on a torrent site. According to Swan, the leak occurred "a couple months before the projected release date", and Reyes notes that the album was "only 80% complete" at this point. Copies of the mix were shared on peer-to-peer networks and blogs, with Gipson reporting that there was also a "vinyl leak". Shortly after, Bilal posted a statement on his MySpace profile, expressing concern that the leak could end in the album being shelved by his record label. Interscope wanted to abandon the project altogether and have Bilal start from scratch, to which he refused and stopped attending scheduled studio sessions. "I was really happy with the work that I had done, and we just started to go back and forth", he explains.
  In September 2006, Adrian Covert reported for Prefixmag.com that neither Bilal nor Universal Records (Interscope's parent company) had made a statement about Love for Sale in the seven months since its leak, while noting the singer's absence from the artist roster at Universal's website. This led Covert to deduce that Love for Sale had been shelved. Interscope's decision to shelve the album became the subj
caption: New York's Blue Note Jazz Club (2004), among the venues where Bilal previewed music from the album
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