Go With It is the album's only proper rap song, but it's a joy, with Vic Mensa's vibrant verse skipping atop a funky, juju-tinged beat.Įgo Death is a cohesive, immersive slice of gender-fluid R&B, and if there's any justice, it'll nudge Syd tha Kyd closer to household-name status. Martians' slow-rolling synthesizers sustain a melty mood throughout, and the album's live instrumentation (the Internet performs live as a six-piece band) lends it an aurally tangible, real-world quality - the slinky bass and smoky strumming of Special Affair the snare clicks and silky keyboards of Under Control.
That Syd never hides her sexuality is significant - how many R&B albums feature intragender love lyrics like those on Girl: "Would you let me call you my girl, my girlfriend, my girlfriend? / I can give you the life you deserve, just say the word, baby." She sings about losing herself in her lover's arms as society burns around them ( Penthouse Cloud), running from the cops like Bonnie and Bonnie ( Partners in Crime Part Three) or gently breaking it off with a girl who's "perfect on paper" ( Something's Missing). "Now she wanna f- with me, live a life of luxury," she coos about an admirer in the first second of opening track Get Away. Primarily a DJ with Odd Future, here she moves behind the microphone, crooning assured come-ons to her lady loves in hushed, smoky tones. The 23-year-old, openly gay Syd, in particular, comes off like a star in waiting. The Internet's lush and sensual third album, Ego Death, released in June, does feature a cameo by Odd Future figurehead Tyler, the Creator, but otherwise, it belongs entirely to Syd and Mike. Want more of our free, weekly newsletters in your inbox? Let’s get started. He's not the only one reeling Them Changes is an utter knockout. Thundercat's deeply distorted plucking sets the tone for his musicians - including Flying Lotus and jazz saxophonist Kamasi Washington - who likewise stomp through three minutes of warped-into-orbit funk as a done-wrong Bruner coos about the "black hole in my chest" where his heart used to be. If that doesn't sound funky to you, then you haven't heard Them Changes, a low-riding beast of a jam powered by the heaviest, stankiest groove of the year. In fact, the only real voice on the EP is Bruner's gentle, reverb-steeped falsetto - think Boz Scaggs channeling Bon Iver, or vice versa. In July, Bruner dropped The Beyond/Where the Giants Roam, a spacey, six-song solo EP that contains no rapping at all. Both feature moments of sizzling musicality and ethereal fluidity.Ī major contributor to both albums was producer-bassist Steven Bruner, formerly of thrash punk outfit Suicidal Tendencies and better known as Thundercat. The past year has brought two prime examples of this new style: You're Dead!, by producer and DJ Flying Lotus (a relative, it bears mentioning, of Alice and John Coltrane) and To Pimp a Butterfly, the ambitious LP from Kendrick Lamar.
The spectrum of sounds these young bloods produce owes as much to jazz, soul and funk as it does to beats and rhymes.
Post-Kanye, we're seeing that influence trickle to a new crop of rappers and producers whose music nods not only to Yeezus, but to genre-melding pioneers like Davis, Herbie Hancock and Gil Scott-Heron. That West considers Davis an influence is no surprise like West, Davis cherished the idea of experimental expression.
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