Monolith Cocktail Blog

The essential Hip-Hop Review/Words: Matt Oliver

With the eight LP Eric B and Rakim vinyl reissue under our arm and tickets for both the B-Boy Championships (October, Kentish Town) and DMC World DJ Championship Finals (October, Camden, with the reigning champion being a stupefying 12 years old) in the back pocket, Rapture & Verse has a spring in its step and something special for sunburnt ears. South London producer Charles Edison, whose ‘My Name Is’, ‘Bitstorm’ and ‘Waking Up’ EP have done the business in this column down the years, lets us in on a sneak preview EP of five instrumentals from his forthcoming upcoming full length. Seamless with the sampler and as inventive as his surname demands, this exclusive preview of ‘Beats from the Seventh Floor’ reads between the lines of relaxation and tension, delivering head nodding from on high.

Singles/EPs

We love nothing more than the smell of ‘Sulphur’ in the morning. Britcore pioneers Gunshot return to set the record straight with a dramatic re-entry seizing a widescreen tracking shot and provocatively resonant lyricism. ‘2 Feel So Good’ by Tha 4orce and Poynt Blak is to acknowledge a morose head nodder looking for the change in seasons, before coming one time ‘4 The Mind & Soul’ with something to roll out red carpet lino for.





A reissue of classic Def Jux between Mr Lif and El-P brings back robotics from the lab and for the tracksuit at 45RPM, announcing the ‘Return of the B-Boy’. On his own version of Beast Mode, Mick Jenkins goes ‘Bruce Banner’ on an absolutely stone cold four minutes, taking his time before clicking into gear over a nervous lullaby. How about some hardcore? DJ Premier slamming pianos is a red rag to the bull that is Casanova, ‘Wut U Said?’ a certified dome cracker coating speakers in saliva and the kickback of a ton of guns. The ivories are quieter on Reks’ ‘Planz’, but the tirade is just as fierce, launching into ‘Bread and Roses’ with Shortfyuz with a sustained appetite for destruction.

Making headway through woozy neo-soul and underground cool, Blu, MED and Lojii supply quick on the draw rhymes for the star-dusted Oscillations project, seven tracks split between producers Dizz1, Swarvy and Teebs. Following the ‘Signs’ marked ‘snug coffee shop corner in Autumn’, Ace Clark breaks bread with Talib Kweli and Joell Oritz over some of the mellowest jazz on the menu. You probably couldn’t ask for a more Atmosphere track than ‘Make It All Better Again’, their requisite, relatable, days of our lives bitter sweetness getting lighters up and devotees swaying across the land. If you’ve ever wondered what the greatest hits of Slick Rick and Audio Two would sound like in an episode of Peanuts, wonder no more – Will C’s ‘Don’t Break Down’ re-houses a couple of old skool classics with folk-B-Boy whimsy.






Albums

Filled with gastro quotable, Scran Cartel nominate themselves as ‘Blue Plaque Candidates’. Master chefs MNSR Frites and Benny Diction stack up and snack on salivary stimulation, joined at the table by Oliver Sudden, Chemo, Morriarchi, Downstroke and more. Primarily smooth with a piquant palette rising from under the tongue, it’s a great, belt-loosening spread grilling you with much more than just a bunch of culinary one-liners.





Behind ‘The Purple Door’ you’ll find boss hogs Juga-Naut and Sonnyjim, spreading their rule over the Midlands and beyond with celebratory funk and status elevation prepared to take it outside when desired. Their usual, indomitable personas on the mic never skimp on Michelin-starred quality – a buffet of rhymes to return to, if you will – and they still aren’t the ones to test if you think they’re pushing their luck.





If you need sharp, accurate, dark and clean UK hip-hop, give the secret knock and ask for ‘617 Black Label’, where you’ll be met by Heavy Links’ Habitat. Moving like a safecracker slipping detection, Kuartz, Evil Ed, El Tel, DJ Obsolete and Cappo all keep a watch out for a rhymer whose strength is all in the stealth, smooth enough to make sure bad boys stay silent. ‘Crowns and Camo’ is the coat of arms for UK grafter Reds, an unapologetic spitter with an East Anglian ear for rocking clubs to their core. The album doesn’t get more complicated than that, posing crossover questions without dilution or losing any firepower, and riding basslines to turn spines to jelly. For as long as the sun stays out, this one will pose a threat. Man-machine rhymes and boom bap vectors mean a straight ahead onset of the Plague. ‘Where’s the World Gone?’ is the question of Xeno and Secondson, rising phoenix-like to dominate the skyline with a dominant distaste. Powerful stuff.

Napoleon da Legend and Giallo Point cause a ‘Coup D’Etat’, casual gangsterisms unflinching when reporting the unspeakable and the opulent, and the latter’s signature of taking soap opera themes down dark alleys until they’re shook for the rest of their days. ‘Societal Pressure’ starring Micall Parknsun, is the album’s significant turn for the worse. We still need a ‘Resolution’, so Paten Locke engineers a seven-track remix of 2017’s Perceptionists reunion, with an added bonus original. Putting Akrobatik and Mr Lif in the fresh new light of ‘Low Resolution’ sometimes sounds unerringly familiar – there’s a feeling the three have been discussing what’s left on Def Jux’s post-millennium to-do list. Additional subtle switch-ups create a high quality cross referencing.





For those that like their hip-hop on the verge of sleepwalking, Kev Brown offers you his ‘Homework’, the low-key exertions of a distracted doodler. Smoke filled listening booths are the target for retrained funk, sometimes done brusquely, other times with kid gloves, to the tutelage of a scholarly-sleepy voice “looking at the credits: if it says Kev Brown – get it”. The restless soul of Jeremiah Jae under his Daffi guise – fractured, hazy, clammy, intense, and unaffected – sharpens razors as night time therapy. A mind illuminated at the same it can shift backwards, processes and destabilises folk, funk, beats and pieces to a happy medium where he’d “rather be underrated than over-hyped”. Both are given a rude awakening by Q-Unique’s lesson in roach-stomping street cinema: ‘The Mechanic’ is all dramatic strings, drums of death and Arsonist threats never to be taken lightly.