Juno Recommends Hip Hop / R&B August 2019

Review: Five years after their collaborative debut, Madlib and Freddie Gibbs reconvene for a follow up that goes even deeper. Madlib is of course a celebrated producer who has worked with some of the best in the game, and Gibbs is a raw street rapper, so it is the differences as much as the similarities between the two that make this such a compelling listen. At times complex and challenging, at others effortless and charming, it's an album stuffed with a myriad of different sounds, styles and references that is hard to categorise but easy to admire.

Review: The criticism of Anderson .Paak's last album, the glossy, big-budget "Oxnard", was so voluminous that his mum took to social media to defend it. The fast-rising rapper laughed off the haters at the time, but it must have hurt. Either way, he's changed direction again on "Ventura", a follow-up that's noticeably more refrained than its predecessor. Musically, what we're offered is stripped-back '70s soul and Prince style purple funk instrumentation fused with head-nodding hip-hop and R&B beats. Paak is lyrically on point throughout, eschewing some of his more sexually explicit lyrics in the post #MeToo era. To complete the picture of an artist going back to his roots, the assembled guests (Outkast's Andre 3000 included) are generally pushed to the background in an unobtrusive manner.

Review: Hip hop fans love a bit of trivia, so hold tight: Damu the Fudgemunk lost power in his studio as soon as he finished recording his first take demos of these remixes. He decided to put them out in 2011 (hence the Power Outage titles) and instead of remaking the exact same beats, he used the sample from the original in a different way to give rise to the Boy Scout Remix. The record sold out in quick time and now gets a long overdue re-issue. The smooth and seductive results speak for themselves, and have more than stood the test of time.