If urban music, as envisaged by those early hip-hop pioneers and rap rebels, has come a long way, then Ain’t Stopping, the latest from Don Pedro, sits at the cutting edge of where such music has got to today.
In many ways, it still echoes with the faint pulse of those original sounds, encapsulating the same beat and swagger, the same outsider attitude and hard-won creativity and a reminder that music evolves over time and has to for its very survival. But as much as it looks back to those earlier music makers, it is where it is going, which is the more exciting proposition.
But if the chart-bound to take on the genre followed unswerving and unadventurous lines, what Don Pedro has to offer is genuinely experimental and underground. Trap beats are used as a template for depth-charge bass pulses, strange outsider dance noise is slowed down and spaced out, and the lyrics are the deft and nimble sound of the man in the street just discussing his life in casual and un-self-aggrandising terms.
It represents everything great about modern hip-hop and rap; this new sound is now driven by trap beats and emo vibes, DIY flavours and outsider attitudes. But more importantly, it is both the sound of now and a glimpse of the future.
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