If It's Too Loud...

After his recent string of fantastic collaborative albums, we're going to pay attention to anything L'Orange is involved with. His latest is with Namir Blade, and the first single from the pair's collaboration sure sounds like this will be another must listen album. "Corner Store Scandal" sounds like the 90's peak of hip hop. It's impossibly funky, and is an absolute jam despite being a little laid back. Plus, there's some killer guitar soloing in the song, which you rarely hear in hip hop these days, even if there is a live band. It does avoid the R&B chorus taken from the sample, so it hits literally all of my personal hip hop buttons. L'Orange has done it again, and I'll be falling deeply into a Namir Blade musical wormhole for the rest of the week. Namir Blade says of the new song:  “I wrote this song after making an exuberant purchase at a corner store, sometimes you just have to allow the mundane to be extravagant.” You can watch the ...

Namir Blade is a Nashville based producer, instrumentalist, and emcee. He started experimenting with sounds at the age of six and kept at it at in high school at Nashville School of the Arts. His latest single, "Stay," brings a unique sound to the fringes of hip hop's mainstream. It has a laid back vibe that sounds like it could be at home on modern radio, but just unique enough to be its own thing. This is probably due to the sparse production, despite the song's fully formed sound. Namir Blade says of "Stay":  "'Stay' is a very poignant song that covers personal issues of abandonment, mental health, as well as the grim expectations thwarted on a young man growing up in and around impoverished communities. In this song, I reflect on past relationships, hardships, failures, while trying to maintain a grip on a thread of hope." You can listen to "Stay" below. Aphelion's Traveling Circus , the new album from Namir Blade, w...