The conflict between cats who think Hip Hop’s golden age will never be matched and dudes who staunchly believe anything pre-2000 is outdated, might possibly outlive the genre.
Now is an interesting time for Hip Hop. Joey Badass, a MF-DOOM nerd, who’s sampling Dilla and surrounding himself in production that is at the very least Boom Bap inspired, is seeing sizable commercial success. All the while, there is no shortage of commercial-bait emcees. It shows that there is still an attraction to older styles of the genre among Hip Hop fans.
Where does AFRO (All Flows Reach Out) come in? Discovered by RA The Rugged Man via a competition he held asking fans to rhyme over a few of his instrumentals, AFRO has since enthralled RA and a number of other legendary Hip Hop figureheads. His style is undoubtedly “throwback” in a sense, but I don’t think its necessarily outdated. Before I analyze it any further I should make the point that AFRO’s flow and lyricism is unexplainably precise and powerful. Considering how young he is, AFRO has more than enough time to grow more into the shoes of a well-rounded Hip Hop artist. I would agree that Tales From The Basement doesn’t exactly have a lot of artistic depth, but I don’t think it’s all too fair to look at a small mixtape from an emcee who’s still finding himself with that kind of critique.
At this point, AFRO’s having fun touring with RA and having his dreams actualized. That kind of experience will most likely manifest itself into a project generously filled with emotion and depth in the near future. So if I’m moving emotion and depth aside then all that’s left to critique is his rapping…which I can’t really do. Like I expressed earlier, AFRO is an incredible emcee with a lot of lyrical power. He’s so close to mastering that aspect of being a Hip Hop artists that I suspect he can leave that sword sharpened, and focus on cultivating the more emotional aspect.
You can peep the video for “Code #829” below and download the mixtape HERE
art by your homie Arthur Banach
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