If you are going to drop a single that makes the listener crave the album to follow, which, let’s face it, is the whole point of a single in the first place, it should be one as effective as Pressure. It is not only a timely reminder of how great hip-hop can be if it just remembers where it came from but also one helluva video.
And so now, their eponymous debut album has landed. If you thought that the singles leading into this release, Pressure and Sweet Potatoes, were all you needed to know to get a measure of the band, this album says otherwise. There are eighteen tracks, almost all of which could have been put out to help build anticipation and interest and had much the same effect, yet all made using sounds and styles gathered from across a number of genres.
Humble Yourself is a sparse, skitter-beat-driven slice of dexterous wordplay, lyrical salvos bombarding the listener on all fronts; Light In The River throws in some R&B grooves as it builds tension and claustrophobic vibes, and Bad Friends is a strange, tumbling collection of beats and ever-evolving vocal style.
It’s a return to what hip-hop used to be about: lyrical dexterity, salvos of street philosophy coming at you hard and fast, grooves that blend grace and grit and groove, and the sound of a duo not afraid to reach back to the past, reach out to associated genres, such as R&B, dance, soul and even no small amount of pop accessibilit,y to remind us of what the genre has lost. And what it might be again.
It is a balance of light and shade, hope and fear, truth and aspiration, and musically, a balance of then and now, what was and what might still be. Thats how you ensure your chosen genre has a bright new future. It looks like hip-hop is in safe hands. Very safe hands, indeed.
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