1.
This collaboration is the most forward-thinking piece of experimentation I’ve seen out of hip-hop in a long time. That’s not a disparaging statement towards the state of creativity in rap today, but more a credit to how strange and exciting it is to see these two names together.
First, a bit of background. Main Attrakionz are a perpetually stoned hip-hop duo making and pioneering cloud rap; the kind of stream of consciousness rapping Lil B has popularized with beats that have the safe fuzzy tendencies most closely associated with producers like Clams Casino. Jam City (a.k.a. Jack Latham) is a very good bass music producer from South London signed to trendsetting dance music label Night Slugs. He doesn’t make dance music, per se, although you could certainly dance to it if you were so inclined. His tracks are often woozily bassy, but often characterized by the syncopated percussion and harsh synth stabs you can find in a lot of London dance music.
Basically, these two represent far ends of the world music spectrum, and this collaboration is something I wouldn’t have predicted happening for another few years. The result is weird, for sure, but I think it works surprisingly well. Jam City’s proved himself to be versatile over his few releases and mixes so far, although he doesn’t have to adjust too much here to accommodate MA’s laid-back rapping- I’m pretty sure they can do that over any kind of beat. Of course, I’ve spent the better part of a year listening to these two artists and their respective scenes separately, so I may be biased. I really do like this and hope more of it happens. Shoutout to The Fader on the premiere and stream.
