Review Summary: A great, varied hip hop album that should keep you smiling for a while after first listen.
Well, this is a short tape so please forgive me if this is a short review. Young fathers are a Hip hop outfit from the UK who craft some very nice, textured hip hop songs with a lot of African influence weaved into some of these tracks. There is also a nice blend of trip hop ( less heavy on electronic sounds tho) and even reggae.
The MCs on this tape aren’t concerned with fiery, technical flows but more on the actual words there saying. The meaning, and how much weight these words carry. You will find some really great, meaning full, thought provoking lyrics with a bold African flavor added in for good measure. The tracks on here have a very interesting momentum and flow with some tracks faster or slower, some with colder textures some with warmer textures. The best thing this album has going for it is just that, its variety. The first off this tape titled “deadline” starts of with a blood pumping chant that keeps going until these super loud, noisy sirens start blaring. Its really exciting and starts the album off well. Then you have “sister”, one of the first tracks where the real MCing starts. This song also starts with some chilling chants and then fly’s into a verse…and a nice one at that. Some really abstract lyrics on this track with some great bass sounds just chugging away.
While there are some really unique tracks on here, some of the best are the most straight forward like my favorite track off this tape, rumbling. This track is so dark, bleak and has an absolutely surreal hook consisting of tambourines going crazy and some off the wall chanting witch gives the track a real primal almost tribal feel. The lyrics on this track are particularly fearful with lines like “ children looking for the dynamite, part time addict her dreams make her cry at night”.
I think the most stand out track on here is the well suited named " romance" witch takes this album into the reggae side of things. the thing about this track is that it is so saturated in effects, its literally dripping with effects. This might not sound like the most appealing thing but its great, its so think and dreamy it takes you by surprise and is a nice change of pace after all these hard hitting more solid tracks.
This album is just great. whether there going for a hard hitting, more solid song or maybe a more soft spoken track, Young Fathers succeed in many ways. this is a great start for them and I cant wait to see what they put out next.
