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Kids These Days – ‘Traphouse Rock’ Album Review

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Kids These Days truly is a rare band. With the assembly of eight separate personalities producing music that spans many genres with live instrumentation, the gap for error is apparent. Yet these eight Chicago teens do not only harmonize blues, pop, rock, soul, jazz and hip-hop effortlessly, but they do so with the execution of musicians two decades deep into their career. They dropped the very dope Hard Times EP last year and are back with their debut full length LP, Traphouse Rock, that showcases a progression leaps and bounds ahead of their previous work, both sonically and collectively.

If someone picked any song on this album, they’d be greeted with a myriad of sounds and instruments, all consistently balanced; this is crucial for a group with so many different pieces all blending into one. This shows when male vocalist/guitarist Liam Cunningham soulfully serenades about how a man’s world means nothing without a woman by his side on “A Man’s Medley,” using the cadence of a voice well beyond his years, or MC Vic Mensa’s ridiculously effortless flow on “Don’t Harsh My Mellow” accompanied by ominously haunting piano keys by female vocalist Marcie Stewart with a spiraling chorus that sounds like it’s falling apart.

The horn section alone in this band would be enough to grab hold my attention for all fifty-eight minutes of the album with trumpeter Nico Segal and trombonist J.P. Floyd. On the song “GHETTO,” Segal hits high staccato notes alongside Floyd, who provides a distorted, whiny drone throughout the song. The beat switches midway to a faster tempo where they play musical ping pong back and forth, until drummer Greg Landfair closes out the song with a sweet solo. This lush instrumentation literally permeates every song.

The subject matter Kids These Days delve into on Traphouse Rock address a plethora of different aspects of teen youth, but doesn’t get redundant or dramatic in that bullshit teen angst kind of way. The pretentious, cynical perception musicians their age typically have in this generation is cleansed by a very genuine place of youth with relatable topics.

Adolescent nostalgia breathes over subdued trumpets that open up the track “Talk 2 You” as Mensa speaks to an old friend/ex over the phone about all the old memories they shared. Pain and regret drunkenly dance with each other in the hook Cunningham sings so honestly: “Bottoms up baby I’ve been drinking/ Let me tell you about what I’ve been thinking/You’re the reason why I wrote this song/ I hope it hasn’t been too long.”

Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, who also hails from Chicago, handled a large majority of the production on this project and did a phenomenal job. The layered instrumentation and improved musicality of Kids These Days is most likely a result of Tweedy’s mentorship.

Take the cohesive instrumentation of The Roots and the free spirited style of Gym Class Heroes pre-2008, and that’s close to how this band operates. Traphouse Rock is music in its rawest,  purest form, from a group of musicians celebrating their adolescence through music played at a much higher caliber.

9th Wonder & Buckshot – ‘The Solution’ Album Review

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The thing I’m excitingly witnessing more and more of in hip-hop right now is one rapper and one producer working completely on a project together, such as Brother Ali’s latest LP with Jake One and the Killer Mike album released earlier this year with El-Producto on the boards. Both of those albums speak for themselves with rightfully earned praise, and fortunately Buckshot and 9th Wonder’s latest collaborative effort The Solution succeeds as well.

Of course when this is an artist’s third full-length album with the same producer, there’s most likely an established foundation present, but the fact that Buckshot is able to maintain longevity for nearly 20 years without sounding dated is impressive.

The opening track, “The Big Bang,” is appropriately titled with a hard-hitting instrumental of twangy electric guitars and melodically thumping drums that’s a nice departure from 9th Wonder’s usually soulful production. Where this album really shines is the balanced variation that 9th Wonder provides throughout the forty minutes that keeps the listener’s interest. From up-tempo songs such as “What I Gotta Say” and “Stop Rapping” to more slowed down tracks a la “The Feeling” and “You”. 9th Wonder truly flexes his dexterity as an architect of sound with beats that allow Buckshot to ride.

Buckshot truly embodies the title of this album: he claims to be the solution to the abysmal state of hip-hop with an unapologetic perception. Albeit that perception is slightly delusional, I think we can attribute most of that to common braggadocio in hip-hop. I do believe, however, that there’s a good deal of truth in a lot of what Buckshot is spitting about on this album in regards to lesser rappers, especially on the song “Stop Rapping”: “You see lights, cameras and action/rapping ain’t for everyone/son stop rapping.” With every twenty-something-year-old thinking they can rap equipped with unoriginal lyrics and Pro Tools saturating the genre, hip-hop doesn’t need subliminal disses or petty, bullshit Twitter beef. It needs someone who knows what they’re doing to let them know what’s up.

Another standout track is “Shorty Left,” where Buckshot talks to his estranged wife who left him. The song continues on about the nature of his relationship with her but when it gets to guest feature Rapsody’s verse, it’s his wife talking back to him from her own point of view. This closure humanizes the song by fleshing both sides of the story which adds to the overall believable depth of the track. What could have been a forgettable song about loss ends up showing a very vulnerable side to the typically aggressive Buckshot.

And yet, to say that the producer outshined the MC on this album would be a fairly accurate statement, but that’s not to imply that Buckshot didn’t hold his own on this project. He most certainly did. However multiple times throughout the album I found myself drowning out Buckshot’s lyrics just to soak in the lush production 9th Wonder is such a savant at creating. In essence, The Solution isn’t an album that defies conventional methods or attempts anything different because it doesn’t have to. It takes the aggression and passion of past decades with an updated sound for the modern era that ends up being pretty awesome.

Devine Carama – ‘Heart of a King’ Album Review

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Devine Carama cuts no corners when it comes to his vision. “Heart of a King,” the followup to his 2011 critically acclaimed album “Blood of a Slave,” has the Louisville, Kentucky native sharing his honest worldview, a combination of divine right and social concessions, in stellar form. Although compromised by a shaky start, the album overcomes any odds with solid, witty lyricism and soulful instrumentation.

Christianity and Hip Hop have many an embrace, but the combination has always been mixed. Hardcore bible-thumping Christians love using rap as a means of sharing the Gospel, but hip-hop heads don’t take well to the inoffensive tone, low-quality rhymes and ultra-sweet message toted over a cheesy beat. Likewise, hardcore Christians seldom bother to buy the latest secular rap album, finding the thick braggadocio and Seven-Deadly-Sin committing “demonic.”

Carama evidently understands and agrees with both sides of the argument. After all, the Bible itself is one of the most vulgar texts in human history despite the theological significance (it displays incest, there are thousands of killings, and every donkey is mentioned as an “ass”) and even Jesus Christ held most of his teachings around thieves, pagans and prostitutes. As such, he not only proclaims his faith but keeps a refreshing honesty about it: “I need to back in my bible though/and realize that I’m a king and stop fucking with them tribal hoes.”

That line probably exaggerates his tone, but it works nonetheless. Carama does not even force repentance or quote verses, yet gets his message across by simply rhyming from the heart, drawing inspiration from Bobby Seale  and Malcolm X as well as Moses, at the very least promotes cultural unity and personal growth. In fact, the best song, the dire lamentation “Soul Dead,” lets listeners know that true faith does not always guarantee true happiness: “I’m feeling so tired and hopeless, as if my heart is wired to explosives,” and the frankly philosophical “Purgatory” details his daily walk toward a higher calling: “because I rap about the man I’m trying to be/but until that maturation I’m just a walking contradiction.”

No contradictions exist in terms of the beats an rhymes, though. Although southern-bred, Carama barely hesitates to show off his dense Brooklyn-esque poetry and penchant for suave, groovy beats. “New Life” has tingling piano and laid-back bass on top of live drums while he stresses the importance of change:“for a breath of fresh air, I’ll duel with the serpent/and its all up to me so I re-channel my chi.” And the obvious example, “Golden Era Flow,” makes good work out of a righteous 70’s funk sample while Carama and guest feature Rob Jackson perform lyrical back flips: “hot cools off but dope is forever, so I neutralize the weather by spitting bars for all climates.”

Sadly, the first track, “The Nicest,” lacks that same feeling. It actually put me off initially, with the overtly sunshiny beat and the corny hook: “whenever I surprise my daughters with pizza for lunch, they scream yeah, yeah, yeah.” No offense, but what?!? Those lyrical back flips occur here as well, but the package surrounding the verses almost lead me astray. If he used the creamy neo-soul  from “Hang Onto The World,” or even switched their places, it would have projected the entire experience much better.

But as stated before, “Heart of a King” turned out way better than expected, surpassing the fumbling intro and contextual assumptions to bring a great perspective on living with faith while keeping in touch with reality, and even dedicates two whole songs to his love for genuine hip hop. He may not consider himself perfect, but his album is one of the best to drop in 2012 so far, and truly deserves support due to a universal appeal and compelling performance.