HIP-HOP REVIEWS
NEIL KULKARNI, 81 Crosbie Road, Coventry, CV5 8FX
QUICKIES
Bluntskinz
Sweet Ganja
Jehst
thebluntskins.bandcamp.
com
England (Boot Remix)
7.0
YNR
Northern lights from
Manchester, nice mix of
reggae and thunkingly
heavy old-skool beats,
rampagingly spot-on lyrics
lending weight to what
we’ve always known. We
don’t need to legalise it.
In most of the country IT
ALREADY IS MANDATORY.
10
Jehst previews his boundto-be-stunning remix album
with this simply astonishing
slab of aggravation courtesy
of Zygote and the everdependable Boot crew. Heavyas-fuck beats, mentalist
doom in the backdrop, lyrics
as harsh and hellacious and
utterly compelling as anything
J has ever spat. THIS is the
sound of the UK in 2014 and
don’t let anyone tell you any
different. From the other side
of the tracks, from where
we all live, a track massive,
mighty and menacing enough
to righteously destroy any
other music that’d dare to
step in its path. Superb,
staggering brilliance from
everyone involved. Perversely,
makes you proud to be British
even as it rips the place apart.
Gavlyn
Guilty Pleasure
Broken Complex
8.5
Superb rhymes from a superb new
talent from LA, Gavlyn, whose
rhymes betray a vulnerability and
fluidity all too rare in today’s age
of over-compensating femme shoutiness — ‘Guilty Pleasure’ flows
like the finest bourbon over your
day, loosening those shoulders up,
rolling out that stress. Sublime sax
crests over perfectly tough beats,
the keyboards and bass keeping
things in that divine place exactly
between the vertical and horizontal. Keep an eye on her, she might
just make 2014 her own.
Bill Next & Paro feat
Hozay
Weedmasons EP
splitprophets.bandcamp.com
8.0
Badhabitz produces the teaser
track ‘Villainz’ from this superb
new EP from Split Prophets acolytes Bill & Paro, and good God
it’s wonderful — a vibe that’s
reminiscent of Telemachus/Jehst’s
‘Sheltering Sky’ but even more
located away from the desert and
in the heat-struck crowded streets,
sax and droneing harmonium adding to the steady destabilisation
of your sense of place and space.
Great flows from Bill