As much as the big rap game appears largely to have creatively stalled, those content to work on it’s underground fringes are bending it into weird shapes that defy gravity. With experimentation at the heart of work from quasi-veterans such as Danny Brown to Armand Hammer, when Andre 3000 can issue the flute heavy New Blue Sun it’s hard not to get the impression that it’s now principally a case of evolve or survive.
H31R – it’s pronounced “heir” in case you didn’t know – are JWords (Beats) and Maassai (Rhymes) and are proudly off the grid in the sense that their cocktail of musical influences stretches across the last 30 plus years of clubbing, a grab bag which includes juke, footwork and bass that premiered with 2021’s ve·loc·i·ty.
Following the release of maassai’s own With The Shifts the duo reconvened to see how much elasticity the formula had, the result being Headspace. Like it’s predecessor some of the value is in brevity – tracks rarely make it beyond a couple of minutes – but especially on the super fuzzed out bass of opener Glitch In Time and Backwards’ glitchy breaks – the duo seem justifiably confident they have the future in their hands.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 