VIDEO: Marques Toliver - White Sails

Much has been debated about the future of the music blog. The entity, which has been around in mainstream form for over 5 years now is maturing into adulthood, and people like myself are finding out that this blog thing can actually be a career in the long term. Aritists now feel like they need blogs to get "on," and I'm bombarded with hundreds of emails a day from people trying to be the next big thing.

I find the whole thing boring and tiresome. And it's made me hate music.

However, after receiving an email from my friend Sade, I'm proud to say that I'm a fan of music again.

[youtube RzBM34cEyUU nolink]

Brooklyn's Marques Tolliver is in his own lane. This video of him performing White Sails on Later with Jools Holland automatically caught my eye. Here is a dude and a violin on a stage of one of Britain's best musical outlets. No fluff, no auto-tune, no fancy production. Just soul. The heart of Tolliver's sound is the violin, and the music student takes his interpretation of that classical instrument to new heights.

Of course I'm late to the Toliver bandwagon. He's already a budding star in the UK and even Spike Lee is a fan. As of now, there are no releases in the pipeline, but you can follow him on Twitter and Facebook.