Dean Van Nguyen

Happy birthday Biggie.

Tue, 21 May 2013 17:03:00 +0100

Happy birthday Biggie.

New Wax Poetics. Slum Village is mine.

Tue, 21 May 2013 01:02:00 +0100

New Wax Poetics. Slum Village is mine.

Listen: The Weeknd “Kiss Land” Originally appears at...

Fri, 17 May 2013 23:06:04 +0100

Listen: The Weeknd “Kiss Land”

Originally appears at TNT24.ie

Success isn’t going to change Abel Tesfaye. Having mysteriously emerged two years ago under the moniker The Weeknd, his trilogy of mixtapes – House of Balloons, Thursday and Echoes of Silence – were an unscrupulous depiction of lurid sex, drug indulgence and post-heartbreak desperation, all set to a hauntingly beautiful set of ice cold synths and pulsating 808 drum loops. Punctuating the indistinct, nightmarish quality to the music was its faceless auteur, who lurked in shadows when pictured for the striking imagery that accompanied each release. No one seemed quite sure who the man behind the music was, even debating whether The Weeknd referred to a group and not an individual.

In keeping with his enigmatic persona, new song “Kiss Land” was posted last night without comment via The Weeknd’s Twitter and Facebook page. A striking listen, the track acknowledges Tesfaye’s new found success – girls come a little more freely; material possessions are more prevalent. But achievement has apparently not brought fulfilment to the young Canadian. In line with previous recordings, the lyrics cover Tesfaye’s two favourite topics: sex and taking drugs. And like his body of work, he doesn’t make either seem particularly glamorous.

A near 8 minute jam, “Kiss Land” is split into two unique sections. The first depicts an ugly sexual encounter with a groupie that Tesfaye takes backstage after a gig. “For what it’s worth, I hope you enjoy the show/Cause if you’re back here only takin’ pictures you gon’ have to take your ass home,” sinisterly sings Tesfaye. As though disposing of the fan quietly and quickly, she suddenly exits the narrative on the four minute mark as the orchestration shifts. The synthetic beats on both sides here are bruising, while his piercing falsetto angelically floats on top of the visceral instrumentation as Tesfaye gets confessional about his dissatisfaction with his success. “I got a brand new place, I think I’ve seen it twice all year/I can’t remember how it looks inside, so you can picture how my life’s been.” He later finds a novocaine for his depression: “I’m still drippin’ down from my nose”.

To the unintiated this might all sound a bit wicked, but for the sinners who have awaited his return, “Kiss Land” is a steller return to the Weeknd’s hedonist world.

Darkly Dreaming Solange

Thu, 16 May 2013 19:40:22 +0100

I never pass up the opportunity to write about Solange.

Earlier this week I reported on Lauryn Hill’s legal woes,...

Sat, 11 May 2013 20:36:22 +0100

Earlier this week I reported on Lauryn Hill’s legal woes, and offered up some reaction to her new track ‘Neurotic Society (Compulsory Mix)’.

Bill Ryder-Jones: A Bad Wind Blows in My Heart

Sat, 11 May 2013 16:06:10 +0100

Former Coral guitarist Bill Ryder-Jones made the best record of his career a couple years ago with If…, so this dull acoustic set of well-worn imagery and awkward metaphors was particulary disappointing. This review originally appeared at Pitchfork earlier this week.

For a time in the early 2000s, British guitar rock experienced a flood of activity that buoyed the nation’s music press into believing that for the first time in ages they didn’t actually need the Gallagher brothers to sell magazines. In this environment, the Coral’s slapdash retread of 60s freakbeat and organ-driven psych rock garnered an enthusiastic reception from critics and festival-goers alike, with sloppy but catchy singles like “Dreaming of You” and “In the Morning” bottling just enough youthful exuberance from the six Liverpudlians to cover up their limited musicianship. But while more interesting bands from the period have fallen by the wayside over the years, the Coral trundle on, releasing dulled retreads of the same record every couple of years that chart reasonably well but show little motivation on the band’s part to break out of their narrow, retro frame of reference.

Full review available at Pitchfork on this link.

Interview: Port St Willow

Sat, 11 May 2013 14:55:00 +0100

My interview with Port St Willow originally appears in The Deli.

Port St Willow
Brooklyn Ambient

Under the guise Port St Willow, native New Yorker Nicholas Principe creates spacious, ambient music led by roving guitar lines and the artist’s lingering falsetto, all showcased on his fine debut full-length record Holiday. The record’s conception was inspired by a three year period living in the Pacific Northwest, and the region’s grand, mountainous terrain seeps into the compositions which veer from soaring anthems to crushing ballads, all of which is draped in layers of atmospheric resonance as Principe assembles his arrangements with meticulous care. Met by critics with rapturous approval, the album has recently been re-released by Downtown Records with new 25 minute composition “Soft Light Rush” as a companion piece.

Talk a little bit about the recent release of Holiday. Why did you feel the need to re-release the record so soon after its first release?

The first release, it was sort of a process y’know? I made the record out west and moved to Brooklyn with it in its finishing stages. At the time, it was probably a combination of me not knowing what I was doing and [not] working with anyone, but when Downtown [Records] reached out they kind of felt that there was no physical version of it - they hadn’t seen any sort of exposure outside what was an organic process.

When those guys approached you about doing the re-release was it something they particularly seemed passionate about? Did that make you want to work with them?

Oh yeah, I wouldn’t of worked with them unless I felt they were supportive. They’ve been great and they’re absolutely passionate about Holiday and also more so about continuing to work together. I’m really excited about Downtown and they’ve been super supportive. I just got the copy of the vinyl to my house - very, very exciting.

Going back a bit to when you started making music, what drew you to doing such a distinctive, ambient rock sound?

It’s like anything it’s always like a combination of things you’re listening to. I grew up writing a lot of songs that was sort of a start for me. I was raised on, like, Beatles and old dad music at the time, so anything I’d ever do, the band I grew up in, it was always about songs. Really, [a change came] when I started turning away from thinking of things as songs and more just as art. I was listening to a lot of drone music, a lot of ambient music. Particularly in Portland, I think I really shifted from four minute songs I was writing to thinking in longer arcs and longer pieces and textures. I was listening to a lot of The Microphones, Mount Eerie maybe it was something about being in the Pacific Northwest that really connected me to music that was being made out there.

Then I started moving into jazz, there was a lot of like nineties post-rock, I got pretty attached to the later Talk Talk records. I think it was a combination of aesthetics, I can always point to it.

Tell me a bit about your process when you first conceive of a song through to the recording. Do you play all the instruments yourself? Are there any other formidable voices you listen to or collaborators who play a big part?

From a composition side I generally work along. On both Holiday and “Soft Light Rush”, there’s a friend of mine out in Portland, Victor Nash, who runs a studio out there. He’s been unbelievably helpful in finishing both those records but also, I can’t play horns, so that’s the instrument that he steps in on. But I think in the future there’ll probably be a bit more. I like bringing people in, but from the formation side of it, from the arc, from the understanding what I’m building and why I’m building it, I tend to like I work alone. I think eventually I’d like Park St Willow to be more of a steady band but right not it’s been pretty interesting to make these things and the idea of bringing people in is very exciting.

What drew you to come to Brooklyn and how have you found it from a creative point of view?

It’s different. It’s definitely different. I grew up in New York I grew up like two hours outside the city. So this for me was coming home. I’d been out in the Pacific Northwest for about three years away from New York longer than that. I don’t know if you’ve lived elsewhere than where you grew up but for myself it was reaching a point that I was either to probably stay out there or choose to come home and be home for a bit. It was actually less music driven then it was personally driven, but a lot of people in my life are back here so it was kind of a very logical and a much needed move. I’ve been loving it, it’s so different. The city’s such a beast in its own way. Like it can be the most inspiring thing to be around and so energetic and motivating but if it catches you on a bad day it can be the most soul crushing place to be. I think everyone struggles with that who lives here but there’s sort of an addiction to be around so many people who, at their best, are very alive with the thing they want to be doing. I find that very enabling. The goal was always to be able to work between both the places, because there’s something amazing about the west. It’s just more my speed.

Why Ireland Has Lagged Behind the Rest of Europe on Reproductive Rights

Sat, 04 May 2013 23:36:10 +0100

My piece for The Atlantic investigates how Ireland’s traditional mores have sparked recent ideological battles, as well as a few national embarrassments.

Read it here

Interview: Marnie Stern

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 20:23:00 +0100

Marnie Stern has made one of my favourite guitar, drum and bass albums of the year. Marnie being Marnie though, there is much more happening on The Chronicles of Marnia than those basic elements of rock usually equate to. Her trademark raucous guitar lines naturally shred through each track, and are matched by her sharp vocals and drummer Kid Millions crashing percussion. Unlike previous records though, new producer Nicholas Venhes cuts through the excess, stripping Stern’s arrangements of clutter for a more focused set.

I interviewed Stern for TNT24.ie and we talked on how she came to this new tightened up sound. It’s below and after the jump.

TNT24 meets Marnie Stern

Since putting out her debut album In Advance of the Broken Arm in 2007, native New Yorker Marnie Stern has forged one of the most distinctive and singular careers in American indie rock. Utilising her frenzied, finger tapping guitar style that veers between the dexterous riffs of The Pixies and Van Halen-esque shredding, Stern’s sterling axe work has helped make her truly stand out in a scene loaded with musicians trying to lay claim to their own little piece of the pie.

Working with producer Nicholas Vernhes for the first time, whose credits include producing for Talk Normal and Wild Nothing, as well as adjusting to the departure of long-time drummer Zach Hill, Stern recently released her fourth album, The Chronicles of Marnia. A more instantly accessible effort than her previous sets, Vernhes helped cut away some of the disorder to display a more nuanced side to the artist, while retaining the killer guitar leads and crashing drums that make her so distinctive. Speaking on the phone from Seattle as she tours North America to promote the album, Stern talked about the new album, trying to break old habits, and the angel and devil that permanently reside on her shoulder.

More…

The Mane Man in Hollywood

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 01:15:00 +0100

I gushed over Spring Breakers for TNT24.ie. But mostly I talked on why Gucci Mane is the greatest trap rapper alive!

Spring Breakers has caused a stir among casual cinema-goers who have glanced at the promo material and seen teen pop starlet Selena Gomez and “High School Musical” alumni Vanessa Hudgens among the young cast. In fact, I’d wager that a good percentage of screens this weekend will be occupied by uninformed punters expecting a light-hearted coming-of-age comedy or a gross-out teen sex romp.

Not so. In fact, Spring Breakers is a visceral shotgun blast to the senses; a wicked fantasy that follows four college girls descent into crime and chaos as the unshackling of their inhibitions during a trip to Florida leads them to the side of a hardener hustler and drug dealer.

More…

Charles Bradley: Victim of Love

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 19:03:00 +0100

I reviewed an album for Pitchfork. I gave it a 6.8.

RIP Roger Ebert. One of maybe three or four writers I cite as my...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 20:59:34 +0100

RIP Roger Ebert. One of maybe three or four writers I cite as my greatest heroes and inspirations. And my favourite critic working on any medium of all time.

Interview: Tandem Felix

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 20:07:00 +0100

Originally appears at TNT24.ie

Tandem Felix have spent the last few years prolifically playing the local Dublin gig circuit, impressing small venues crowds one show at a time with their evocative alt-rock sound that recalls artists like Jeff Buckley, Radiohead and early Verve.

Having garnered a sizeable fan base, the four young Dubliners – David Tapley, Evan Keogh, Conor Muldowney and Fiachra Kinder – are preparing to release their first ‘official’ record, an EP titled Popcorn on April 1^st, with a live performance at The Grand Social to mark the occasion. An astonishing five track work, Popcorn (already available to purchase as a download) ups the scale of their previously home-recorded demos. Crafted over the course of a year at Windmill Lane Studios, the band experiment with trumpets, pipes and cellos and various other instruments, channelling all into their expansive, flourishing sound.

I first spoke to the group almost two years ago when they were still cutting their teeth by performing live. Catching up once again with front man Tapley, we discussed the intervening period, the making of Popcorn and the record’s inspirations.

The last time we spoke you guys had a bunch of tracks you were performing and available to hear online, but you told me releasing an album or EP officially wasn’t a priority. What’s changed in the time since?

David Tapley: With the set of songs we were performing at the time, which we called Tweedledee, having a release under our belts wasn’t a priority. I felt as if that set of recordings was very strong. However, they weren’t written or recorded with a release in mind. They were more like a portfolio for us. Initially, everything I had recorded in my house was online and I felt when I sent it to radio people or blogs, it would turn them off that it was not in an album format. So I worked on a track list and left only ten of them up, mainly out of necessity. The thing that changed is that we went into the studio with the idea of recording and releasing an EP.

How else have you spent the intervening period that’s helped culminate in Popcorn?

We spent over a year recording and mixing Popcorn. So anything we did in the interim between the last time we spoke and today was probably revolving around the recording of that. I have worked a lot with the Trinity Orchestra which has been a great source of motivation. Also college, I’m in my fourth year of Electronic Engineering [studying at Trinity], although that has not helped so much.

Popcorn’s tracks are probably your lushest set to date. What was the recording process like and what inspired you to experiment with new instrumentation?

For the lush quality of the recordings, we owe many thanks to the large room in Windmill Lane. It allowed us to try things I had never been able to try at home. Working with the Trinity Orchestra has given me access to some of the best young musicians, a few of who are really great friends of mine. With this EP, I got really excited to try and write string arrangements for some of the songs.

You use some scattered audio clips of conversations that kind of reminded me of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. Where did those come from?

I’ve always been interested with speech and how it interacts with music; Lumpy Gravy by Frank Zappa, for example. The audio clips in the EP stem from the title, Popcorn. I noticed that over the course of the year, I had many conversations with different people about popcorn; its qualities, its characteristics. It’s a unique snack – not quite a crisp, not quite a cracker; hard to define really. It’s a good type of food to share, since buckets or bags of popcorn are usually quite big. Then I started drawing parallels between popcorn and music. No two pieces are identical, although some are alike and they all come from the same little kernel in the middle. Share popcorn. Share Popcorn.

You’ve also a striking new video for the song ‘Tell Yer Loved Ones’. Can you tell me a little about its creation?

The video was inspired by an art piece that my girlfriend and studying artist, Lesley Humphreys, had made a few years back. She filmed her grandmother, sort of like a screen test, and then filmed herself trying to imitate her every move, layering one shot atop the other. There are some pretty strange moments where their faces align and it’s hard to tell what features belong to which person. At certain points, their faces combine and the product of the two looks bizarrely like Lesley’s mother, her grandmother’s daughter. In our video, I attempted to recreate the same effect, by using two takes of the same shot and placing one over the other. It’s one thing to do when you’ve got a moving camera, but even harder when you try to shoot it in slow motion and double frame-rate. The cereal thing, that’s another story for another day.

Tandem Felix’s Popcorn EP is released on April 1^st and will be launched with a performance at The Grand Social.

Lil Wayne: I Am Not a Human Being II

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 01:20:00 +0000

Everyone knows I love Wayne so it hurts me to have to murder his new album like this. But like Trey Songz says: “If throwing rocks at the throne wakes up the King, consider them thrown.”

Nothing peaks interest in an artist like their untimely demise, and while reports of Lil Wayne receiving the last rites at a Los Angeles hospital recently may have been greatly exaggerated, his bouts of ill health and supposed drug addiction have ratcheted up some short-term interest in the now 30 year old rapper. As if on cue, the release of I Am Not a Human Being II offers Weezy a chance to wash away some of the murky headlines that have attached themselves to his brand of late, as well as the opportunity to rediscover the kind of form that propelled him to the level of fame that tends to attract such attention.

Full review available at PopMatters on this link.

Hey Mrs Carter

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 23:21:20 +0000

I’ll be contributing regularly to new Irish webite TNT24.ie, writing on culture, entertainment and pop music. Here’s my first post. It’s about Beyonce, obviously.

Pop supremo Beyoncé brings her Mrs Carter World Tour to Dublin’s O2 arena this May 11th and 12th, just one stop on her global trek as she delivers the kind of spectacular live performance fans got to sample at this year’s Super Bowl half time show. And in Ireland admirers of Queen Bey are not in short supply, with the 14,500 capacity amphitheatre quickly selling out both dates…

More…

50,000 followers, ya hurd.

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 20:23:05 +0000

50,000 followers, ya hurd.

Greatest ‘first song-first line’ rap lyric of all...

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 16:32:26 +0000

Greatest ‘first song-first line’ rap lyric of all time? I’m going with, “I was a terror since the public school era / Bathroom passes, cutting classes, squeezing asses.” Can anyone better that?

I Can See Clearly Now

Thu, 14 Mar 2013 04:53:00 +0000

Justin Timberlake surprised us all by streaming his whole album a few days before its release. A few listens in, here’s some scattered thoughts.

In the promotional videos released in the lead-up to the release of The 20/20 Experience, Justin Timberlake made the point of explaining his seven year absence from the recording studio. “I don’t think I can physically torture myself that much, year in and year out, and expect it to fulfill me the way that it does and the way that it is right now,” went the soft voiceover. Of course, seven years doesn’t touch the 13 years we’ve been waiting for new D’Angelo music, or the year-in-year-out wait for Dr Dre’s bound-to-be-awful third album Detox, but in pop terms, seven years is a generation gap. Since Justin hiked off to Hollywood the pop landscape has changed several times over. Almost none of the current crop of stars, trends or sounds were around when he last put out music. Consider that 29 year-old Olivia Wilde, his co-star in the awful Hollywood star vehicle In Time, was recently berated as being “old” by Justin Bieber’s twitter fan base for poking fun at their idol and you get a sense of how fleeting your pop prime might very well be.

Timberlake is 32. A grown man these days, he might argue that as a senior figure in the game he doesn’t really need to connect with an audience so young they may not have fully formed memories of ‘Rock Your Body’ or even ‘My Love’. And he might be right, but let’s not pretend that nothing is riding on the release of his new album The 20/20 Experience. Timberlake’s spot among pop’s historical elite (a bracket he’s capable of ascending too) is far from secure. Two albums in 10 years plus a string of releases in *NSYNC feels pretty lightweight when stacked up with, say, a Beyonce, whose four albums and spot in Destiny’s Child has seen her round a lot more corners than JT.

In that context, Timberlake really shouldn’t sound as relaxed as he does on The 20/20 Experience. When ‘Suit & Tie’ first dropped a few weeks ago there were a few discontented murmurs, but I was not one of them. It was a lean, sleek piece of R&B pop, reminiscent of self-produced crooning of nineties R Kelly. A comfortable reintroduction to JT’s soulful swagger before he got busy reinventing pop music in his own new image – a track likely to pop up on the album’s bonus tracks. Not so. In fact, the new album arrives much sooner than I expected, and ‘Suit & Tie’ is importantly positioned as track 2. A kickstarter to the 10 track record; a clue that Timberlake might not have been reaching for reinvention as much as retro rejuvination.

‘Comfortable’ is a word I keep coming back to when listening to The 20/20 Experience. From the old fashioned promo material to the laid back delivery of almost every track, JT often resembles an artist cutting his swing covers record; a sure sign their careers have begun to falter. A huge part of his first two solo records, Justified and FutureSex/LoveSounds, was Justin’s drive to leave behind his curly-hared boy band rep and make two giant strides into adulthood. ‘SexyBack”s crazy assertions that Justin was the saviour of all things sexy played like a steely, determined cry by its author to be considered an adult. Drawing a line from the teenage Justin that first appeared on children’s TV to fully grown artist kind of reaches its logical conclusion here. His falsetto is unaltered, but he no longer sounds like a boy reaching to become a man. He just sounds like a grown up.

Some have compared this new record to the sound of Robin Thicke, which is apt. Thicke’s relationship with Paula Patton has been the key catalyst of all his music, and it shows. When Thicke coos out his love songs he does so like a man singing to the woman he loves. Justin got married some six months ago and for the first time his love songs sound very much targeted towards the one, specific love in his life. His invite to his female fans to listen and daydream of being his muse, like on ‘Senorita’ or ‘My Love’, is now retracted. Every love song on The 20/20 Experience sounds like an ode to wife Jessica Biel, from ‘Suit & Tie’, to the sickly sweet ‘Strawberry Bubblegum’ and the throwback sound of ‘That Girl’.

Justin may catch some heat for the prominence of slow jams and lack of club belters here, but it’s actually the soulful joints that are among the album’s strongest tracks. Probable single ‘Let the Groove In’ is a rickety and annoying salsa tune and there’s little beyond that. Timbaland, the man behind the majority of Justin’s most memorable moments, produced every track and his constant presence can be a problem. By and large he’s using the same thumping drum loops we heard a decade ago on ‘Cry Me a River’. The duo’s chemistry has always been great, but one must question JT’s decision to gamble everything on the man whose post-FutureSex/LoveSounds output has very much been inferior what came before it. ‘Mirrors’, for example, does not sound retro as much as it sounds dated. And have a listen to bonus track ‘Body Count’, a redub of a different side of R Kelly – his uninspiring Spanish-flavoured singles ‘Thoia Thoing’ and ‘Snake’, a trend even Kells, who mines every decent idea he has to the fullest, abandoned quickly.

And both JT and Timberland’s insistence on changing up each track midway through in a similar vein to FutureSex/LoveSounds’ ‘Love Stoned’ is maddening. ‘Pusher Love Girl’ is a five star opener – all slick keys and programmed orchestration – until the track loses its way, stretching out to an unnecessary 8 minutes long. Never does the half time change up strenghten a track, they only weaken it. And with seven of the 10 tracks stretching past the seven minute mark, many outstay their welcome

If these criticisms sound jagged, it’s only because FutureSex/LoveSounds was such a belter. One of the few great pop records of the 21st century even. I’m still getting to know The 20/20 Experience, and there are some fantastic highlights. But no doubt, this isn’t the reckoning we might have hoped for. Instead it’s the bare bones of a great record. If only there was a voice insisting JT use his editing sheers more cuttingly. If only there was a Three 6 Mafia jam slipped into the middle of the album to keep listeners alert. If only JT sounded more hungry for reverance, and not like a man running his musical career lap of honour. Near misses are so often the most frustrating.

For no reason here’s ‘Girlfriend’ by *NSYNC and Nelly.

This year’s Austin, Texas edition of The Deli is available...

Sun, 10 Mar 2013 21:59:56 +0000

This year’s Austin, Texas edition of The Deli is available now to read online. Texas natives can get their hands on it during Music Week (March 12th to 17th) with 10,000 of the things being distributed between Downtown, the East Side and South Congress. It contains short write-ups by me on a variety of interesting bands and artists, plus a lot of other worthy stuff.

Joey Bada$$ - Linking The Old School to the New School

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 02:29:00 +0000

Originally Appears at RAPstation.com

Brooklyn’s Joey Bada$$ stretched his wings on A$ap Rocky’s recent posse cut “1 Train,” skilfully rapping over a beat that should have been out of his comfort zone. The 18-year-old can be considered one the premium young rappers out there right now, perhaps only behind Kendrick Lamar and Rocky himself in terms of recognizability, but he can certainly count Rocky, Kendrick, Yelawolf, Danny Brown, Action Bronson and Big K.R.I.T (all of whom also appear on “1 Train”) as his contemporaries, despite all of the above having more releases under their belt and Joey forging a very different sonic path.

For many, the guest spot will have been the first exposure of the young rapper who occupies a very different space in New York’s new wave of artists being tipped to bring hip-hop supremacy back to its founding boroughs. Released last year, Joey’s breakthrough mixtape, 1999, was a retro dream, drawing inspiration almost entirely from hip-hop’s golden age. With jacked beats from J Dilla, MF Doom and Lord Finesse, 1999 was mixed with a spot on recreation of classic boom-bap production by up-and-coming beat makers Chuck Strangers, Bruce LeeKix, and Freddy Joachim. It was a smooth, jazzy alternative to modern day Lex Luger bangers and even A$ap Rocky’s own spacious trap rap and dubstep-infused beats. Additionally, Joey’s laidback flow provided the perfect companion to the rich instrumentation, primarily drawing influence from one of his heroes, Doom, popping syllables off each other like a jazz drummer pops his hi-hats. All that was missing was the gravelly texture to Doom’s villainous voice, replaced instead with Joey’s youthful freshness. Lyrically, meanwhile, 1999’s most fervent enthusiasts compared it to Nas’ Illmatic, citing not just the similarity in production, but likeness of the young poet’s knock-around New York tales.

And so Joey is something of a unique entity. Yet on “1 Train,” he rides the beats twisted strings with pure skill, bringing a different lyrical slant to the track than those that precede or follow him. “Barely even conscious, talking to my conscience/Gettin’ deeper in these flows like conches,” goes Bada$$, acknowledging his conscious rap style, to me so often reminiscent of a young Common. And later: “Just got back to the block from a 6 o’clock with Jigga/And I’m thinking’ ‘bout signing’ to the Roc/But my n-ggas on the block still assigned to the rocks/And I swear it hurt me soul.” It’s indicative of 21st century hip-hop that an artist like Joey, with no album to his name yet, can rub shoulders with the elite like Jay. A young Nas wasn’t discussing the high life on his earliest records, but it’s still refreshing to hear Joey’s primary focus is on the streets. A lyric on 1999’s “Waves” links him to B.I.G, citing hip-hop as a means to escape violence and poverty. “You’ll get it in ya vocals if you ain’t a local/Yeah, that’s why I’m tryna go global/Yeah, that’s why I’m tryna be a mogul.”

Joey has indeed suffered in his young life, not least of all last Christmas Eve when his friend and frequent collaborator Capital Steez committed suicide, chillingly tweeting “the end” before taking his own life. But Joey has ploughed on bravely, and his post-1999 releases that have been just as exciting. DJ Premier’s production on the single “Unorthodox” is pure silk. On the more recent “Underground Airplay,” he’s joined by Smoke DZA and Big K.R.I.T. in a slick retro video. And in addition to Preemo, Pete Rock has been working with Joey on his debut album – a perfect fit. Working with two of the greats just further links Joey to the old school. And with the talent to match, he’s one of the most exciting rappers around right now.

By: Dean Van Nguyen for RAPstation.com