genres: grime + gospel
Grime – a British style of rap with heavy influences from Jamaican/Caribbean and North African communities – is a thoroughly fascinating movement. It’s simultaneously combining underground/garage band entrepreneurial spirit with streetwise topics and a high level of musical layering in comparison to other contemporary subgenres like trap or various ‘Soundcloud’ genre experiments. It’s impossible to imagine this combination occurring prior to the democratization of electronic music in the internet age. From modern standards like Stormzy to the incredibly futuristic experiments of genre figurehead Skepta to the dubstep experimentation of pioneer group Foreign Beggars, there’s a lot of phenomenal and unique sounds in this relatively young genre. Despite these exciting developments, the scope and experimentation occurring constantly can make for a difficult time to find an entry point – especially for audiences from outside the UK. Against that backdrop, young artist Guvna B offers a polished package that includes clear influences from each of the major sub-movements, while also offering enough true originality to interest those with experience in the genre.
There’s two primary musical trends at contrast on this album. The first, exemplified by early album songs like “Cushty” and “Fall on Me” is a futuristic grime sound that mixes in electronica elements and horns with molten basslines. The beats on these tracks invoke what a modern Kanye might sound like if he kept evolving the pre-808s production approach. The vocal melodies don’t offer anything revolutionary, but they also maintain a constant quality and switch flows with both frequency and unpredictability to keep everyone engaged. The second mode frequently at work are gospel music infused anthems (not terribly unlike Stormzy’s Heavy Is The Head crossed with Chance The Rapper). There’s less experimentation and I find them personally less compelling, but there’s no denying that there’s a quality in line with either of the aforementioned mainstream artists.
The most interesting and unusual moments come in sadly small doses by combining various modes of dancehall music, both jazzy and electronic DnB, as “These Are the Days” and “Battle” do. It’s a very fun approach that feels both bouncy and slightly dark. Especially contrasted with the more inspirational tracks, it helps the album avoid many of the pitfalls that ‘uplifting’ music can fall into of ignoring emotional complexities. “Kumbayah” takes the same mood with a more minimalistic hip-hop approach. These moodier tracks are wonderful and do something that hasn’t been nearly as explored with top notch production in the genre. These tracks, along with most of the other late album tracks as well, are the real meat of the album – while the first half introduces listeners to all the other sounds being created in the genre.
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