Rap music is built around big beats and bombast, vibrant sounds and lyrical onslaughts, right? Well, not always. With No Chain Uncle True shows us an alternative path one that is more about space and minimalism than the full on musical salvo’s that we have come to expect. Starting with lilting, almost music box piano tunes and haunting synth washes, even when the song kicks in properly it only adds skittering staccato beats and the rapped lyrics and little else.
It is the space that makes things more powerful, the focus is always on the lyrics and not on the usual studio gimmicks and technical trickery that many artists resort to. Where this fits in to the scheme of things is anyones guess but someone has to be the first to blaze a trail through new territory and that may well be Uncle True’s legacy. When ambient rap or whatever future journalist end up calling it is the fashion of the future, Uncle True will be the cult figure that every one will claim they heard first.
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