Burnin...
...and Kopelli, Blaksmith, Mic Write and Phenom are fanning the flames to charm some burgeoning fan-dom for their new album...
Counted among the Fans of this rousing rock-kicked R&B-grooved rap collective are many notable (fellow) contributors to Detroit's verdant/varied hip-hop league - - like producers Jay Norm and Eddie Logix, esoteric hip-hop trio Detroit CYDI, The Olympicks, Nameless and Apollo Brown.
Some of us who've already been fans may have started getting antsy for this supposed "full-length" that had seemed, throughout the year, to be ever-forthcoming.
Well, shut-up and groove ye grumblers- - cuz you've got 16 tracks to slide. Fan's a full plate production, with most jams taking their time to set that soulful, hands-up party vibe; swaying, banging and tumbling along up to the four minute marker, sustaining a substantially amount of space and steadily paced soulful-trancey-trip so as allow each rap-representative, be they a CMY staffer or a dedicated cameo contributor, to lock in their signature dozen-or-so bars. Thus, in taking their time to get this out, the production for each track gets time enough to bloom under the busy lyrical layers, with evocative pianos, trundling bass booms, looping synth chills and cascading beats. (Nods, then, to the meticulous sample scores of Norm and Logix).
With keen coolness and this raw retro-tinged re-imagining of rap - the boys here build their own bombastic quad-level Pagoda, as exciting and stylish as a neo-hip-hop Game of Death with four times as many kicks, chops and flips as any Bruce Lee type could bring
Resonating with heavy/hearty funk-reverent ruminations; each of the four respective young cold men rotate in, up, down and back out democratically, presenting varied jams, ballads, slow-dancers, night-drivers and straight-up rockers; playful enough to spread some subtle libidinous lyrics, edgy enough to elbow in more provocative fare of topical social commentaries, and, peeking at the edges of almost all the tracks, simmering with the potential, the readiness, to rile it up right off the stage or bubbled-up right outta the basement, a quintessential party-starting scenario.
Fire on the dancefloor...
Anyway, enough from me...
