Odds & Ends 129
Happy mediums, high averages, songs sometimes
Busta 929: Undisputed
Amapiano in a happy medium between the essentialist bangers of Kabza and Maphorisa and the outer/inner space explorers on Awesome Tapes from Africa, with declamatory rapping and mutter-rapping and even a woman once to offset main man Mgiftoz SA’s croon and falsetto, already followed by Undisputed Vol. 2 and Vol. 3, which I’m going to go out on a limb and guess sound more or less the same as this (“Sdudla No Slenda”, “Sgodo”, “S’pharaphara”)
The Attic (Rodrigo Amado, Gonçalo Almeida, Onno Govaert): Love Ghosts
Your average Amado et al. record, which is to say excellent: big riffs, big rhythms, big honks, and you bet they make sure the experimental stuff sounds good, though perhaps start with the first Attic album, which is a Euro cheaper as a Bandcamp download (“New Tone”, “Encounter”, “Love Ghosts”)
Emma Donovan & the Putbacks: Crossover
As someone who doesn’t know my Ngarrindjeri from my Gumbaynggirr, I find that occasional use of indigenous languages aside, the current queen of Aboriginal R&B sounds very much like a well-fried Southern soul singer, which is far from a bad thing when you have her voice and her pet Melburnian backing band (“Warrell Creek Song”, “Yarian Mitji”, “Leftovers”)
Blxckie: B4Now
Durban master of trap triplets and ersatz croon is excellent at the line level, though sometimes perfunctory at assembling lines into songs, especially given that “ye ye ye ye” is as complex a narrative as he needs (“Big Time Sh’lappa”, “Ye x4”, “Stripes”)
R.A.P. Ferreira: 5 to the Eye with Stars
Still sui generis in flow and ideas, which is enough when the rhymes or beats are there, and usually one or the other is (“Lampião’s Flow”, “Mythsysizer Instinct”, “Fighting Back”)
JD Allen: Americana Vol. 2
Adding guitarist Charlie Hunter to Vol. 1’s trio, Allen comes up with heads that nearly hold up next to “You Don't Know Me”, while Hunter picks up the improvisatory slack (“You Don’t Know Me”, “Hammer and Hoe”, “A Mouthful of Forevers”)
More fine standards, but no Greg Osby, so you might as well exhaust all four hours of The Off-Off Broadway Guide to Synergism before getting around to this (“Two Over One”, “Enchantment”)
PsychoYP: Euphoria EP
Nigerian-Manchunian alté rapper who recorded this while finishing his Master’s, clever if you consider rhyming “I only speak Guapanese” with “been in shawty ovaries” clever (well, it is) and skilled if a little derivative, but even when he’s doing straight trap he makes sure that he has heavy beats and that his guests meet his standards, to the point of letting one borrow those ovaries (“+234 (Daily Paper)”, “Guapane$e”)
Metallic hardcore band cramming multiple movements into sub-two minute songs more self-helpy than one might expect from the hardest band in upstate New York, but it’s helped them graduate from drug dealing to public school teaching, so good for him (“Rotten”, “All Facts”)
Pongo: Sakidila
Such a versatile vocalist that she often overcomes the anti-specific pan-African beats Unimoth bestows upon her, especially when she’s working on her home turf of kuduro or in similarly progressive dance styles like gqom or maybe Euro-gqom (“Amaduro”, “Hey Linda”)
Rodrigo Amado: Refraction Solo: Live at Church of the Holy Ghost
If you’re into solo tenor records, Amado might have the best knowledge, fertility, and cardio to deliver a good one of anybody right now; if you’re skeptical of solo tenor records, then this’ll fulfill your quota for the year, not unpleasantly (“Sweet Freedom”)
Youngboy Never Broke Again: 3800 Degrees
Not someone you listen to for good lines or even good rapping per se, but he can overwhelm most non-moral objections through sheer relentlessness: at least until E-40 shows up to hawk his $19.95 retail Mangoscato and remind you that good lines actually make rap a lot better (“Thug N*gga Story”, “Won’t Step on Me”)