Scene and Heard – CCCXIII: Drive ‘n’ Text – Robert Boog (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

By his own admission, Robert Boog isn’t a natural musician, but he is  naturally a creative soul, as a string of work in literature and movie script-writing will attest to. And like all creatives he knows that it is the idea and the ability to make something happen rather than just the performance which is the key thing. The wonders of the modern age means that you can take your ideas and connect with others, bring in the people and the skills that enable you to get you across the finishing line and very often do it without even leaving your office chair. And that is exactly what he has done here.

Drive ’n’ Text sits at a place on the musical Venn diagram where hip-hop shares space with a dark infomercial, one, as the name suggests, about the dangers of texting whilst driving and narrated from the point of view of death watching on. But whilst being informative, it also cuts it as a great piece of urban music, is delivered via flowing narratives and confident beats, the street-level language making the message even more poignant and the easy groove of the song making it totally accessible.

Not only a great use of a musical platform, not to mention a good tune, it is thought provoking and poetic in a grime and realistic sort of way but more than that it is a testament to the ability to come at such a project as a non-musician and through the power of technology and collaboration to end up with something really cool.