musicians came
PHARAOH – “REDЯUM (DULLBOY EP)”
This is a dirty, uncompromising and aggressive sound with a constantly pressing narrative, and for some reason it is precisely such compositions that succeed Gleb best.
The last year’s PHARAOH hit “Diko For example” was positively appreciated by almost everyone, so to speak, by rap historians. This is not the most popular track of a Moscow artist, but perhaps one of the most important moments in his musical career: foreign profile publications started talking about him, and the spectacular video clip even reached TheNeedleDrop, the most popular reviewer. Continue reading
Kanye West & Kid Cudi
Kanye, having lost the responsibility for his words in an infantile manner, recorded, together with Kid Kadi, an album about how catharsis and liberation make us return to childhood. Having ceased to defend their freedom in the world around them, they recorded seven gospel ballads about the struggle for internal freedom, the struggle against personal demons.
At the end of April, when Kanye was tweeting and making public round-the-clock, I wrote a short note that he was a “free” person in a certain sense, mainly because he was not responsible for his words. By chance it somehow happened that for his two plates (“Ye” and “Kids See Ghosts”), released this month, the topic of freedom turned out to be central. Continue reading
Top foreign nonformat albums
A bit late, but still publish our top for 2017 from the best foreign releases that do not have (or have a minimal) relation to hip-hop and are usually published under our regular column #Neformat.
Gord Downie – Introduce Yerself
October 17, died Canadian musician Gord Downey. His death did not come as a surprise, because back in May of 2016, he was diagnosed with brain cancer in an advanced stage. A week after the death of the artist, his latest album “Introduce Yerself” (“Imagine Yourself”) was released, and he began working on it with the frontman Broken Social Scene after learning about the impending death. As it becomes clear from the introductory part – the disc is entirely composed of elegies, so that depression and melancholy come through from every line, every word and chord. Continue reading
