Last week I shared Chance the Rapper’s latest mixtape with y’all and I’m back this week to share another project he was featured on. This album is new to me, but it was actually released last Fall. The album itself is a fusion of hip-hop and jazz, two of my favorite genres, and is full of new artists as well as veterans. I love hearing live instruments on a track, and that’s something that isn’t done a lot now. Between Pro-Tools and sampling old school cuts, the demand for live instruments in a recording studio has gone down, but The Social Experiment along with Donnie Trumpet (aka Nico Segal) decided to give the people what they didn’t think they needed with ‘Surf’.
‘Surf’ was dropped last year as a free album and Chance the Rapper is all over it. He’s uncredited, like most of the artists who are featured on the project, but I feel like a connoisseur of hip-hop and R&B music can figure out who’s on what. I was at work when one of my friends sent me a screenshot of the album and told me to check it out, and for the entire hour I found myself saying “is that so-and-so?” before I finally caved and wiki’d the album. Turns out I was right and it was Busta Rhymes, Big Sean, Erykah Badu, B.o.B., J. Cole, Janelle Monáe and Jeremih to name a few. This is one of those albums that I feel like isn’t long enough; I was truly sad when the last song ended and immediately looped it another two times. I was just that impressed by it as a whole project.
Now y’all know I couldn’t just tell you about the album without telling you my favorite tracks. All of them are really good, but there were a few that stood out immediately and I added them to my ‘Spring 2016’ playlist. “Slip Slide” (with Busta Rhymes & B.o.B.), “Warm Enough” (with J. Cole), “Wanna Be Cool” (with Big Sean on the first verse and Jeremih on the chorus) and “Sunday Candy” (for Chance’s verse alone) were instant favorites.
This is the kind of album you can put on and let it play all morning and I encourage y’all to do just that. Thank me later!
[…] his awards and when he gave that phenomenal performance with Tamela Mann, Kirk Franklin, and Donny Trumpet. Chance has been working incredibly hard and I look forward to seeing him in a few months when he […]