Having continually pushed the boundaries of genre conventions over the past decade or so, Sam Binga surfaces on none other than Critical Music with a monster debut LP that pulls together all the disparate threads of his past into a glimpse of a wild and exciting future.
Weighing in at 17 tracks and featuring the likes of Om Unit, Chimpo, and Hyroglifics, the LP is a hard one to pin down as it rides that fine line between drum & bass, jungle, dubstep, and grime, representing what UK bass music culture is all about and where it’s headed.
It’s lean and mean with a nod to the old school, but thoroughly modern if not futuristic in its approach to riddim and sound. MCs like Redders, Rider Shafique, Warrior Queen, Tt the Arist and more contribute to the lively feel of the album, the dank-level toasting unleashing a vocal narrative that rivals the tectonic movements putting in mad work beneath the surface.
In the liner notes for the LP, Binga says it best when he calls the album a larger part of the “ongoing and endlessly inspiring conversation between Jamaican sound system culture, US hip-hop, and UK club music. There’s elements of grime, jungle, dancehall, footwork, crunk and more, but it’s all filtered through my experiences growing up through the aftermath of the original rave explosion, post ‘Summer Of Love.’ In some ways, it’s also a love letter to everything my life in dance music has opened up to me.”
Out now so prepare to have your dome blown.