There has been a slew of music of late that falls into the broad hip-hop/rap spectrum and which claims to be really pushing the boundaries of what the genre can be as we move forward into a new era. Most, however, is the sonic equivalent of dropping a hand grenade into the middle of the listener’s expectations and then trying to rearrange the debris into new and pleasing shapes. Sure, you really shake things, and then some, but you also find that the result is normally, well…a total disaster.
$oul has a much more consistent approach and this remix of Problems is the sound of urban music being intensified, inwardly focused, distilled to its essentials and then used to build a dark, dystopian-hip-hop sound…now there’s a new concept. The beat and groove of the music has enough effortless cool to satisfy the mainstream but it is the back streets that he wanders, collecting unexpected musical details and re-appropriating unusual sounds that make him stand apart from his chart-focused competition.
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