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.
Matt Oliver’s Essential Hip-Hop Review
So, it turns out that 50 Cent isn’t a bitcoin millionaire after all. And that Talib Kweli found about the Black Star album reunion on the internet, like the rest of us. So Rapture & Verse has had its fingers burnt while attempting to keep ‘em on the pulse. We’ve been consoling ourselves instead with the possibility of that zillion dollar Wu-Tang album being relisted on eBay – we’re more likely to bid on that than go for a Record Store day reissue of Cam’ron’s finest hour – and that a trip to Busta Rhymes Island (a legitimate map location, not a Flipmode Squad theme park) could be just the job to escape this frightful weather.
Singles/EPs
Del the Funky Homosapien and Amp Live – not in the roles of Nicky Campbell and Carol Smillie – wheel up the ‘Wheel of Fortune’, a banger that pleasingly doesn’t travel straight up and down as the club dictates. Music to fry by, ‘Fajita Effect’ is the Doppelgangaz letting loose another dollop of that ‘Dopp Hopp’, East-to-West funk that’ll make you guard your grill. MED and Guilty Simpson pledge ‘Loyalty’ with a set of easygoing back-and-forths nudging you to fling your windows wide open, save for ‘Face Down’ making you eat mat.
‘Donkey Punch!’ from Wundrop & Kemastry is here to make an ass of us all, an unsteady hallucination turned into actual fact. More Juga-Naut for you on ‘Found Objects’ means more East Midlands elitism, striking blows and a pose over half-inched favourites and rocking some of his own wares with a dissertation worth of references to chew over. The right honourable Harvs le Toad gives the airwaves some zing with ivory tinkler ‘Minty Fresh’, Vitamin G and Louis Loan tipping their hat to a beatsmith taking his jazz all the way to Walford.
Pragmatic in the face of joy, lo-fi curio ‘Plus One’ by Pan Amsterdam balances spring-has-sprung strings with a deadweight flow locked between Jonwayne and Count Bass D. Killer horns lift the firing Bishop Nehru up to the ‘Rooftops’, and ‘The Mood’ lifted by Smoke DZA featuring Joey Bada$$ would be relegated to just another trapper by numbers were it not saved by a lovely ice cream van riff wafting over the top. Back with a new set of scalpels, Dr Octagon – Kool Keith, Q-Bert and Dan the Automator – prescribe a one-way ticket to ‘Area 54’, full of that ‘cosmetic, kinetic, ultramagnetic” good stuff measuring you for a bodybag.
Albums
Calming yet still able to speak up, Ty’s ‘A Work of Heart’ almost feels like a magic carpet ride over the capital’s skyline, especially with singles ‘Brixton Baby’ and ‘Eyes Open’. Or the navigating of London backstreets like it’s a gambol though the countryside, despite there always being potholes en route. Or set adrift on memory bliss before stubbing its toe. You get the idea, so come and spread your arms if you really need a hug.
Apathy’s continued research into finding six million new ways for you to pop your clogs, means ‘The Widow’s Son’ is a fourteen round fight for your life (the title track calling in a favour from He-Man). Producers DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Buckwild, Nottz and Stu Bangas spread out in a bid to keep up with punchlines and wordplay battling into the fantastical. Remember, “while you rocking man-buns, I’m cocking handguns”. The second Prhyme instalment of Premier and Royce 5’9” continues their restoration job of hip-hop integrity. It still might not be enough for hardcore dream team assemblers, yet there are far worse concepts than an emcee extending his hot streak right from the off, and the producer richly rounding out the boom bap rat-a-tat, without either stuttering in stride.
Black Milk confidently advises you to catch his ‘Fever’, smooth neo-soul style that keeps your ear pressed hard to the speaker, and whose live band wisdom is velvety enough to give you a universally appealing education that cuts through the smoke. 2018 has another seat filled for best of reservations come Christmas.
It’s rare for an instrumental album/beat tape to sound so luxurious, but Calvin Valentine isn’t skimping when putting his feet up in the ‘Plush Seats’, 20, sub two minute silk cuts of soul and funk to have you glued to your pew. On the clunkier but no less funkier side, Exile’s excerpt in the ‘Baker’s Dozen’ series chops away to great effect, treating the MPC like a punch bag and still able to get smooth with it. ‘Sunlight Grace/O\Moonlight Vibes’ tells you all you need to know about Sai Wai, a pulse-steadying emcee keeping fires burning once jazz has closed shop for the day and has a date with a long hot bath in mind. Good for what ails you.
Still sounding like they’re working on Her Majesty’s Secret Service and still not giving the game away, The Herbaliser’s ‘Bring Out the Sound’ mixes lavish funk escapades with hip-hop involving peak-time Rodney P and beats styled as B-boy informants. Also eating away at hip-hop’s wider possibilities, Cut Chemist steps up to add songs and scope to his signature turntable torque. Edan, Mr Lif, Chali 2na, Myka 9 and Biz Markie fulfil mic duties as wings are spread into dusty, enquiring indie-dance and electronica that helps build an intriguing album that’s more a fluid soundclash than dazed collision.
Germany’s DJ Obsolete lays down jazzy failsafes in the field of pleasantly mature, springtime-in-the-90s boom bap, with features from Blabbermouf, Gee Bag, Warpath and Nomadic. ‘The Mandela Effect’ pays careful attention to expectations of the headnodders panel, and keeps it swift and to the point. Inviting you to wallow with them in sour times, the dejection of Dove Rock and Jackson Jones’ ‘A Pretty Way of Saying Ugly Things’ points loops downwards and posts spiritedly accepting lyrics peering over the fence, way too smart for being moored in the back of beyond. Gritty, windswept drama on a countdown to D-day, you shouldn’t expect anything else from the John Does also known as The Incredible Disappearing Man. On their eponymous album, grimly determined rhymes keep their head, buffeted and taunted by beats bound by the hands of fate.
For those up for some “unapologetic nerdcore boom bap schizophrenia”, Dngr Eyelnd open ‘A Lovely Room of DEATH’, a destination plastered in warning signs yet one where the madness is kept methodical, an intimidator honouring beats and rhymes protocol by arguing that “if this ain’t real hip-hop, then Taylor Swift is classic rock”. Make your reservation now. The tumultuously grungy Moodie Black and their symbol for ‘Lucas Acid’ fill the moshpit with feedback and threats, death rattles and loud, industrial spite; not a place for smiley faces. ‘Bulletproof Luh’ comes cultish – an at-odds flow from Mach Hommy stone-facedly seeks a ride or die chick, over far more adventurous, self-produced sampledelic beats.
Mixtapes
He’s been there, done that, got the T-shirt and now has the Presidential cap to match. DJ Yoda’s ‘Make Mixtapes Great Again’ is his usual long shot of heavyweight hip-hop, TV and pop nostalgia, declassified secret weapons and mischief closing the gaps in between. Expect Prodigy in combat with Bob Holness, KRS-One duetting with Bobby Brown, Paul Barman taking a sleigh ride, a 128K version of ‘Forgot about Dre’, Huey Lewis and The News, and so on and so on.
This month’s moving pictures: C.A.M. takes to the streets, Quelle Chris & Jean Grae take it to the arcade, 4orce and King Kashmere take a hike, and the late Craig Mack shows who’s boss.
HIP-HOP REVIEW
WORDS/SELECTIONS: MATT OLIVER
So, where’d you place your X this month? Rapture & Verse voted for that bloke dressed as a fish finger, mainly because we’ve always been down with Captain Birdseye, but was interested in how emcees were able to draw out the youthful/apathetic when it came to getting involved in the polling process. Here’s an example of hip-hop that rocked the vote: Si Phili leads the canvas, with Si Spex flipping Mott the Hoople.
Singles
East London’s C.A.M. sticks his size nine into DJ Daredevil’s jazz silk-n-snares, front foot form that orders the rest to ‘Act Like You Know’: slickness capable of slipping in a scissor kick. To a knotted, backwards sliding guitar doing the hula all wrong, Earth2Tom gives Frshrz free rein to examine the ‘N_WRD’, a deft dictionary drill that you need to know about. Someone has really got Micall Parknsun’s goat, and we should all be grateful, smashing into Mr Thing tinkling a piano into an ominous tremor and guaranteeing ‘The Raw’. Remixes come from Jazz T slinking in hobnailed boots, and Park-E arming himself with an organ crowing that the enemy is near.
From the ‘Baby Driver’ OST, Danger Mouse builds a custom block rocker for Run the Jewels to floor it to, the hot-wired funk of ‘Chase Me’ picking up Big Boi en route and laughing all the way from the bank. Young RJ quietly urges you to ‘Wait’, a smooth soul swirl taking the edge off with Boldy James and Pete Rock biding their time to invest in a track that’s four minutes worth of sweet spots from the Slum Village affiliate. Also frosted with street cream, Chris Rivers’ ‘Lord Knows’ is one to keep heads up and life in perspective, all while shouting out Joey Tribbiani. The hipster experience from WLK & BSS, both advocates of sunglasses at night, turns skeletal electro into pulsing neon on ‘Nightlife’; from the falsetto hook to the soft trap furnishings, it’s a cruise down the strip acting as high society on social media.
Too tangy for your tastebuds? There’s always Prophets of Rage’s ‘Unfuck the World’: more rock-rap rallying and polling booth ransacking from Chuck D, B Real and RATM which speaks for itself, right down to the video directed by Michael Moore. Alternatively, try Prozack Turner’s ‘Obsession’, a rumpus of guitar-bucking hip-hop matching a B-boy stance with a tip of the Stetson.
Albums
‘Billy Green is Dead’ writes Jehst, a life and times chronicle showing the sort of word association and plain English penmanship that has long made him the UK’s premier emcee. Psychedelic residue, where the Drifter carries on mixing toxins ‘til he’s lost in the synergy, drips into his bests of being uppity and indignant, shaping a storyboard of the eponymous paranoid android dealing with the five degrees of grief. Open-ended enough to keep you wondering whether this is all one carefully calculated dream/lavishly constructed fake news, it’s a demise to be joyous about.
With Ramson Badbonez coming on strong on ‘Hypnodic’ (full review here), an ace marksman hitting every shot at the shy before quickly ducking out, Joe Blow is ‘The Smoking Ace’, the Squid Ninja mixing up surprisingly soulfully tuned rhyme sprees with raw balaclava ripostes – “my life’s a snuff film they won’t show at the cinema” – with consistency absolutely paramount. Ral Duke, Pacewon, Roc Marciano and Skamma help Blow give it both barrels.
With his usual UK to US blend of quiet storms turning into full blown street typhoons, Endemic Emerald, directed by the begrizzled Skanks the Rap Martyr, present ‘Rapsploitation’. Featuring a clutch of underground generals, only press play if you’re a school of hard knocks alumnus and list your hobbies as looking directly into the eye of the storm. Guided by the uppermost UK pedigree on the mic, the recruitment skills of Australian producer Must Volkoff are a bargain for ‘Aquanaut’ to watchfully guard the gateway to the deep. Add some local emcees to the vibe warning against one false move (please, no quips about going Down Under), and it becomes an album to sneak past security where the reward is worth the risk.
Combative in the ‘Game of Death’, Gensu Dean and Wise Intelligent of Poor Righteous Teachers are a well matched pair of pugilists. Dean’s production, woven with a wispy touch of consternation while pulling no punches, and WI’s spry, Kendrick-ish flow always aware of the threat in hand, make it an event fit for a king. Scathing political observations are the key to the lock of David Banner’s ‘The God Box’, throwing open an interesting Southern variety of funk, soul, trap, spoken word and rock to rummage through. The complex sharpens your elbows (including one wedding first dance) with messages doing the same to your brain. FYI’s ‘ameriBLAKKK’ might not make as many genre hops but is just as focused on modern day and historical injustice, a quickness of lip and concept from the LA provocateur showing the possibilities of standing up and smoothing it out (including one late night booty call).
Set in a doorstep reality of drum machines, rap bots, isolation stations and soul flashbacks shambling and shimmering to a mostly unexplained specification, two albums of enigmatic boundary twisting from Shabazz Palaces aim to drown you in lyrical/production depth, or make you feel you’re the last being on earth. Both ‘Quazarz: Born On A Gangster Star’ (featuring an unofficial bend of Kraftwerk’s ‘The Model’) and ‘Quazarz vs. The Jealous Machines’ reek of jet pack fuel, docking late night to mark the X in unorthodox.
Blacastan & Stu Bangas’ ‘The Uncanny Adventures of Watson & Holmes’ contains a disappointingly low number of references to deerstalkers and matters being ‘elementary’. A single case-cracking track later (‘Murder Mystery II’), Blacastan’s grimy, jawbreaker rhymes are permanently on code red until he’s almost chasing his own tail, and Stu Bangas’ beats – weapon of choice proudly displayed on the sleeve – riddles boom bap with a quiver of hollow 80s synths and American wrestler rawk. English detective pleasantries < “Gravediggaz, with a lil’ bit of Main Source.” Kool G Rap’s ‘Return of the Don’ is swamped in guests to the point where’s he almost the first leg to his own album relay. The calibre of those joining the salivary stick ups is undeniable – Raekwon, Termanology, Sean Price, Cormega and more – and wall to wall production from MoSS allows ample street profiling, but overall it’s another veteran’s day hustle dampening expectations.
Straightforwardly jazzy and making the MPC sound like a million bucks, BennyBen’s ’16 Levels’ is a Finnish breeze of instrumentalism, with the odd dark strand and a couple of mic spots from OnePlusOne bringing the cappuccino beats to the boil. Mightily living up to its title, Fredfades’ ‘Warmth’ flows like sun rays through blinds, with fawning hip-hop rhymes on hire and a soul bronzing that’ll chase away meteorological grey. Of boom-bap crafted as bittersweet symphonies and burdened jazz wanting alone time in the rain, Remulak’s ‘Earth’ is still a comforting presence getting the best from your headphones.
Mixtapes
Always landing sunny side up, Jay Prince’s ‘Late Summers’ has got R&B moves and the lure of the trap as its main prongs of attack. The influences soon become obvious, as is Prince’s smarter-than-most planning to anchor many a good weathered party, whether your yacht’s at full speed, or someone’s shouted there’s more alcohol back at theirs.
Vital visuals this month: Juga-Naut’s self-assessment, Dutch Mob’s photo album, Datkid getting a foot in the door and the thrift of Career Crooks.
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