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When artists actively foreground made-up genre descriptors or musical fusions as their calling cards, it’s often a red flag–a warning that something hokey and potentially painfully inauthentic awaits. Reading part of New Orleans band The Stoop Kids’ description on FB sets off those signs of danger:
“Founded in 2012, the band’s official genre is ‘Doo Hop,’ a combination of Doo Wop and Hip Hop. Sampled beats, layered harmonies, groovy bass lines, and high falsetto are the bread and butter for this band.“
Of course, there’s that old saying about what happens when you assume.
The Stoop Kids debut album What A World is certainly not a transmission from the cutting edge of music; it is however, a love letter to both doo wop and classic hip-hop, a smooth, crackly mixture of samples, live instrumentation, and a balance of earnestness and self-awareness that takes off what ever true-school edge might work against them. It’s organic, well-crafted music that bounces between woozy jazz hop and boom bap, never letting self-proclaimed genre designation get in the way of the music.
Stream What A World below.
