SOLE AND THE SKYRIDER BAND X BONAFIDE BEATS #19

Following on from last year’s departure from the label he helped create, Anticon co-founder Sole hasn’t completely left behind the record label’s distinct characteristics in his latest release, and third album alongside the Skyrider Band.

Hello Cruel World is often emotive and ambitious with it’s ideas – recalling the psychedelic rap zeitgeist of cLOUDDEAD’s self titled debut and the acerbic, cerebral rhymes of Sage Francis (a guest on the album) and one time enemy EL-P – and the spacial new wave beats are deftly handled by the Skyrider Band. 
However there is a new found lucidity to Sole’s raps here and this is probably his most accessible record to date, even coming off like a postmodern Drake on the Rnb flirtation Formal Designation 134340 (“a waiter, with a masters degree, that isn’t much of a life G”) and pulling in Lil B for album highlight Bad Captain Swag.

That said it’s highly unlikely to be bothering Radio 1 play lists any time soon, but like many of Anticon’s early releases this is highly original hip-hop, without sounding derivative of the labels pomp period.

Continuing in this contemporary fashion, Bud aka Skyrider, produces a mix for Bonafide which is a “chopped and screwed” version of Hello Cruel World. Ghostly vocals float in and out of the mix with different flanging effects reminiscent of Brainfeeder’s criminally overlooked sound collagist Matthewdavid and onto the brash dubstep of Rusko, making it one of the most ornate and intriguing Bonafide Beats mix to date.

Filed under: Bass, DJ/Turntablism, dubstep, Electronic, Hip-hop, Mixes by D.K.