Browsing Tag

Spoken Word Hip Hop

Resonant Quietus: BLVCK GARDEN expresses the inexpressible in his emo rap hit, ‘MY SILENCE’

Posted on 18 October 2024

BLVCK GARDEN’s single ‘MY SILENCE’ is an intricate exploration of how silence is the loudest scream. BLVCK GARDEN is just one of the guises of Carlos Fabre, an artist with roots deeply entrenched in electronic music and hip-hop. As BLVCK GARDEN, Fabre channels his versatility into an emo rap project that resonates with an irrefutable intensity.

The track initiates with a robust thrum of harsh, reverberant bass—a foreboding echo that sets the stage before the beat escalates beneath sharp-with-candour bars delivering the pinnacle of vulnerability.

Fabre constructed a soundscape where spatial effects and the dynamics of the instrumentation speak volumes. Each verse is delivered with a raw, freestyle energy yet carries the weight of a seasoned poet’s ink, unveiling a spectrum of emotions that connect through stark honesty.

Emerging from his diverse musical background—having honed his skills in production and instrumentation remotely via RRFC—Fabre’s latest endeavour in emo rap hints at a promising new direction. With aspirations to sign with a label and further his reach, ‘MY SILENCE’ is a sign of massive things to come from the emo rap luminary.

MY SILENCE hit the airwaves on October 6th; stream the track on SoundCloud now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

UK rapper, Tom Penny extracted spoken word poetry from idiosyncrasy in his standout single, Spiral of Fumes

Posted on 26 August 2024

 If Tom Penny’s third LP, Both Sides of the Coin doesn’t feature on every rap publication’s album of the year list, we riot. The album pulls back the façade to narrate the UK rapper’s struggles and subsequent growth, drawing from his early freestyling days and his evolving passion for hip-hop influenced by lyrical legends such as Kendrick Lamar, Loyle Carner, and J Cole.

One of the standout tracks, Spiral of Fumes, kicks off with an extended, wavy prelude imbued with etherealism, setting a reflective mood before the beat drops, establishing a magnetic rhythm beneath Penny’s melodiously smooth spoken-word cadence.

You won’t just hang off every word in his bars, you’ll be engrossed in every syllable as Penny establishes himself as one of the most eloquent wordsmiths in the UK hip-hop scene, with emotionally bruising bars reminiscent of Kae Tempest and George the Poet.

By the outro, Spiral of Fumes fully reveals the kind of artist Tom Penny is—one who extracts relatable poetry from idiosyncrasy, stripping bare while simultaneously reflecting the listener’s mental state.

With his surging streaming stats testifying to his growing renown, it’s only a matter of time before he rises through the ranks and holds dominion over the UK scene.

Spiral of Fumes is now available to stream with the LP Both Sides of the Coin on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

KAotik waxed lyrical on the tragedy of wasted potential in his old-school hip-hop track, Fascinate

Posted on 23 March 2024

KAotik (AKA Bruce Reign) kept old-school hip-hop fresh with his latest track, Fascinate, which strips the instrumentals right back to their fundamentals, allowing his killer canter to take the spotlight in the mid-tempo release.

Following a mellow, almost transcendentally toned intro, the spoken-word verses wax lyrical on everything from the tragedy of wasted potential to accepting fate without consigning yourself to it. By finding plenty of room to assert wordplay, clever cultural references and his ethos on putting lyrics to the forefront of his productions, the Washington-born, Laurel MD-residing artist of Nigerian descent used Fascinate to not only do what the single says on the titular tin, but to inspire, and he hit a home run in doing so.

If KRS One, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, and Black Thought feature heavily on your playlists, make room for this profound hit.

Stream Fascinate on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Tom Hutchcraft illuminated the stains on our systematically oppressive social fabric with ‘Venting’, featuring Dizzy Wright

Posted on 23 February 2024

Tom Hutchcraft’s entry into the hip-hop sphere with his single ‘Venting‘, featuring the accoladed flow king Dizzy Wright, is nothing short of a revelation. The Cambridge-based artist, previously known for his piano covers and classical prowess, has taken a bold leap, landing squarely in the realm of rap with a track that resonates with both rhyme and reason.

‘Venting’ is a striking blend of Hutchcraft’s sharpened with acerbic wit spoken word cadence and Wright’s seasoned Blackalicious-esque flow. The track stands out not just for its musicality but for its socially conscious heartbeat. Hutchcraft’s lyricism delves deep into themes of racial prejudice and systematic oppression, offering a narrative that’s as observationally astute as it is emotionally charged.

The beats in ‘Venting’ are a rhythmic catalyst, inducing listeners into a heightened state of awareness. It’s a call to consciousness that will stick with you for long after the outro. For a first venture into hip-hop, this track sets a high bar, not just for Hutchcraft but for the genre as a whole. It’s a testament to the power of music as a tool for reflection and change, and a sign that Hutchcraft is an artist to watch in the evolving landscape of rap music.

Venting will reach the airwaves on March 23rd; stream it here.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

reubencmg looked beyond the surface level of scars in his compassionately raw rap track, Insecure

Posted on 31 January 2024

In his latest single, Insecure, the UK rapper reubencmg opened a narrative on how we can walk through life buried under the weight of our trauma which bears down on everything we do, from how we navigate relationships to what we will passively accept from life’s protagonists who bank on people being bruised enough to tolerate exploitation and humiliation.

With the soul in the backing vocals harmonising behind the George the Poet-esque spoken-word cadence, which adds to the melodiously wavy vibe of Insecure, reubencmg keeps it raw and real while delivering a gritty urban soundscape that people can seek solace within every time they need a reminder that every person you walk past in the street has their own demons to defeat and burdens biting down on their psyche.

Stream Insecure on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Queen LaBelle played with fire in her boundary-transcending spoken-word hip-hop release, Risky Behaviour

Posted on 18 October 2023

Poetry may have been a dying artform before the release of Queen LaBelle’s LP, For the Kings and Queens Spoken Word; following the drop, you can consider the format viscerally reincarnated.

The standout single, Risky Behaviour, featuring bars from Jarren Benton which flow as smoothly as the conviction that bleeds from Nas’ verses, is the perfect introduction to Queen LaBelle’s wordplay which fuses to the exotic instrumentals and snappy hip-hop beats to deliver a striking blow of mesmerism with every spoken word declaration.

Throughout her artistic journey, Queen Labelle has performed alongside icons including Dr Cornel West, inspired courage in trauma survivors by sharing her own stories and providing positive healing affirmations, published collections of poetry, and, on this album, worked with Grammy Award-winning producers, including My Guy Mars (Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, Nipsey). While some pioneers are worth following for their artistry alone, others inspire devotion through dedication to bettering an increasingly bitter world in the same creative breath. Consider LaBelle an icon of the latter camp.

Risky Behaviour was officially released on October 6; stream it on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Jaeya poured the perfect sonic summer cocktail in her genre-fluid hit, 510

Posted on 9 September 2023

Taken from her seminal retrowave hip-hop EP, BAYANI, the up-and-coming artist, Jaeya’s slick with sublime style standout single, 510, is a melodic cruise through ingenuity and gripping grooves that will hold your rhythmic pulses like a vice.

Her sun-kissed amalgamation of RnB pop vox and tropic hip-hop beats unravels as the perfect sonic summer cocktail that you can savour time after time to devour her witty wordplay and the introspection that allows her bars to hit so resonantly hard.

Even at a young age, the Bay Area Filipinx artist’s creativity knows relatively few bounds; she’s made herself known in Cali and beyond for her songwriting and emcee skills. Her debut EP flawlessly exhibits her cultural contribution to the music industry, and her ability to fuse urban genres until they’re an intoxicating pool of refreshingly curve-transcending bliss.

Stream 510 on Spotify now.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Sweet Limb shattered the illusion that police brutality is a 21st-century novelty in his single, Relate

Posted on 1 August 2023
https://soundcloud.com/sweetlimb/relate/s-IiQUS59TzrV?in=sweetlimb/sets/nice-ep/s-2n9eP7YYwU2&si=cf909d6b7849473ca2165c37802b2c11&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Sweet Limb took his latest hip-hop EP, NICE, right back to the old school and around the Bronx block to deliver an urban atom bomb of nostalgia.

With his standout single, Relate, the Austin-based flow king reigned supreme as he rode the steady rhythmic waves of the funky basslines and 808s, which become the centres of gravity in the minimalist polished track that shatters the illusion that police brutality is a new issue and the only one that marginal communities feel the forces of oppression from.

While many rappers rushed to contribute to the voices in the BLM movement, Sweet Limb bided his time to speak for everyone who can’t relate to the portrayal of the onslaught of police violence in the media, not because it wasn’t a barbaric travesty, because it was a tale as old as time and pretending otherwise is just another brand of injustice.

The NICE EP will hit the airwaves on August 1st; hear it on SoundCloud.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Ike Sanders stopped the hands of time with his fiery new rap track, Stolen Clocks

Posted on 6 April 2023

Literally and figuratively, Ike Sanders’ standout single, Stolen Clocks, from his 2023 hip-hop EP, Seven Hills, is the hottest rap hit you will hear this year; prime your summer playlists for the intoxicatingly seamless fluidity to the expression.

Enigmatic yet seductive, playful yet commanding, the rhythmically rolling rap bars against the bright and scintillating alt beats set the charisma bar unattainably high. Stolen Clocks is an urban jam orchestrated to transcend to a higher plateau with.

Even with the lyrical grit, the optimistically sweet disposition stays true to the Atlanta-based artist’s ethos of orchestrating genre-bending, passion-driven conscious rap. With his tendency to pull in international influences rather than staying true to his hometown roots, you would be hard-pressed to find a more exotically alluring hit.

Stolen Clocks dropped with the rest of the Seven Hills EP on March 24; hear it on Spotify.

Review by Amelia Vandergast

Decuma unleashed their rogue existentialism in the spoken word viscerally experimental hip-hop track, basketball. ft. yska

Posted on 12 January 2023

Blurring the lines between poetry and hip hop, the atmospherically magnetic first single, basketball., taken from the Detroit rapper and musician, Decuma’s album, let’s play pretend, reaches the pinnacle of gritty dynamism.

Switching up the vocal tone to match the sentiments in each verse as they stay true to their brand of rogue existentialism, basketball. ft. yska is a defiantly disarming window into the mind of an artist committed to holding the world accountable for its prolific sins.

The instrumentals that seamlessly drift through cutting orchestral layers to dark and distorted bit-tune-ESQUE beats to nostalgic jazz hip-hop samples always fall in line with the provoking lyricism that makes no bones about reaching vindication by rehashing injustice.

There is little to tie each blister of candour together. When they are put together collectively, you hear a true account of how generational, romantic and institutional trauma can amount to breaking points for even the most tensile who walk amongst us. Decuma did Nietzsche proud.

Check out the official 360 Video that premiered on January 3rd on YouTube.

Review by Amelia Vandergast