Hip-hop and jazz-minded producer Catching Flies, aka George King, has now built up a reputation for using his dreamy instrumentals to draw new sides out of your favourite artists. Trim, Jay Prince and Oscar Jerome have all graced his work with their respective flows and today he's back to repeat that magic, this time summoning the talents of two rap heroes, Blu and Jehst to elevate one of the highlights from his July-released Silver Linings album, "Yŭ".
The two rappers tackle the smoky, jazz-soaked instrumental — which perfectly and seamlessly blends live instruments and electronics — with cerebral, stream-of-consciousness bars that breezily run through every subject from global warming to the stress of the grind, all expressed through rain and water metaphors; appropriate since the track's title literally translates to 'rain' in Mandarin.
Speaking with Complex via email, King told us: "This was a bucket list tune to me… I listened to Blu's album Below The Heavens and Jehst's LP Return Of The Drifter constantly throughout my teens and early twenties — they were both really influential albums for me… I can safely say these are my two of my favourite rappers of all time… so I'm honoured that they were both up for jumping on the track. Coincidentally, my favourite tunes of theirs both feature references to rain (Jehst's "People Under The Weather" and Blu's "Dancing In The Rain") so it seemed fitting to pay homage to this by sampling them both at the end of the tune."
