The Journey

Quality boom-bap for your earholes

     

When it comes to boom-bap, Spanish-German producer Superior (Marcos Oviedo) is steadily becoming one of the best in the business. His brand of the East Coast American style of beats is on the smoother end of the spectrum, lovely and almost romantic in its gentle sway of samples, yet firm on the drum end. His new LP The Journey, the followup to Scenes from 2015, is a pro-compilation of some of Superior’s best stuff of late married to great guest verses from emcee-names big and small so you’ll learn about some new artists in the process.

Street themes are present in several spots, but worth mentioning specifically and besides the typical urban tales are Lyric Jones’ wise perspective on “Open Letter,” Rocdwell’s love for lady in “I Got You,” and the excited power coupling of M-Dot and Revalation in “Earn It.” The “bigger” boys worth shouting out include REKS, Verbal Kent, Termanology, Lil Fame of MOP and Spnda. Superior doesn’t show many angles of his producing style, even within boom-bap, but his sample selection, his mixing and the silky finish of the final audio-product are truly from a trained, skilled technician and artist of hip-hop music.