From The Heart by producer Koralle is a classy bit of jazzy hip-hop out now on the Little Beat More label and featuring veteran emcee Awon. The track is lifted from the forthcoming Perfections EP and finds Koralle delivering the chillest of beats, all lounge jazz piano tinkles and Miles Davis-like trumpet noodles so it’s a minute before it registers that Awon is delivering what amounts to an understated brag rap, if that’s not a contradiction in terms. “Underground and major/ I been Ill since I got it off my pager,” he observes, adding, “I got critical focus, poetic lyrical digital dopeness,” before later noting, “My name on pyramid walls Like a pharaoh/ It was written in the hieroglyphs/ God gave me some divine gifts sent me to the Earth to uplift/ Nothing but life coming through my lips.” Ah yeah – that’s definitely a brag rap.
(Out now on Little Beat More)
