Gaika - Basic Volume
The Guardian 80
(Warp)
Quite apart from Gaika’s bracing lyrics, the sound of his voice alone makes the Brixton MC the most arresting British rapper of his generation. Heavily accented with a Caribbean twang, it’s a combination of the Congos’ and Horace Andy’s vibrato-laden dub croon, Future’s psychically troubled rambles, Young Thug’s improvisatory melody, Tricky’s calm snarl, and the fierce focus of drill’s new school. And yet it is entirely his own, with the declamatory tone of a soapbox preacher who won’t break eye contact with you.
Related: Gaika: ‘If you’re a black guy you’re supposed to make grime, reggae or coffee-table music’
Continue reading... Fri Jul 27 08:00:16 GMT 2018The Guardian 60
(Warp)
Warp signings the Sabres of Paradise had an album called Haunted Dancehall (1994); this debut from another Warp act actually sounds like one. Brixton-born Gaika is an MC with a grounding in Caribbean sounds: dancehall, reggae, London grime. But as a producer he unites two disparate aesthetics, leaning towards the goth end of narcotised R&B. Through a series of mixtapes and EPs, Gaika has carved out a niche that triangulates artists such as Mykki Blanco (with whom he has collaborated), the Weeknd and serpentwithfeet.
Basic Volume moves Gaika’s art on apace, with standout tracks such as Born Thieves, or Black Empire (Killmonger Riddim) or Immigrant Sons (Pesos and Gas) all foregrounding Gaika’s political bent and tunefulness like never before. Seven Churches for St Jude finds the all-too-human Gaika praying before he gets on a plane; Clouds, Chemists and the Angel Gabriel is a heartfelt snippet that deserved to be a song.
Continue reading... Sun Jul 29 07:00:54 GMT 2018Tiny Mix Tapes 40
GAIKA
Basic Volume
[Warp; 2018]
Rating: 2/5
This is what Batman would sing, alone, to himself, in his Batcave on a night where no Bat-Signal signals, if he could sing, which he can’t.
This is what the white man’s world doesn’t want to know. Of the black body within a country that doesn’t recognize it. Of the black body being scanned and feared and exploited and shot and killed. Of the mouth that tells it it can’t be British.
This is the false hope that all of this racial and political strife will turn into tears and tears and tears drifting down every cheek in England, of every color, and we will, amid our tears, recognize that we have more in common than we thought, and that life is but a dream.
This is what it sounds like to be rid of your body but still have it, and love it; to transcend it.
This is sound as a form of rebellion, resistance. Of the bodily, of the body’s energy held in a lightness and shedding a soft, unspeakable tone: a light frequency you can’t see.
This is an inner emptiness. An identity mistaken for nothing. Something glossed over as nothing when in reality, it was something. Karmic imprints in our bodies. Traces of the past. Scorpions glowing at night from the moon’s ultraviolet light.
This is how to resist the temptation of a supposed utopic, post-racial space.
This is coming to terms with the beauty of anxiety, stress, physical pain, depression, and thoughts of inadequacy.
This is the sound of having something that they don’t want you to have and that you can’t get rid of. Something sinister, drifting quickly toward nebulousness. Something powerful. Something that you can’t speak of. Something unnameable.
This is how to repel the Evil Eye. How to allow your melancholic restlessness to morph into angelic postulation. How to start praying again. How to restart the ability to imagine who you are. How to redefine your limits.
This is the sound of a thin stench of burning bone coming from a kebab shop’s dumpster.
This is the sound of no end in site.
Tiny Mix Tapes 40
GAIKA
Basic Volume
[Warp; 2018]
Rating: 2/5
This is what Batman would sing, alone, to himself, in his Batcave on a night where no Bat-Signal signals, if he could sing, which he can’t.
This is what the white man’s world doesn’t want to know. Of the black body within a country that doesn’t recognize it. Of the black body being scanned and feared and exploited and shot and killed. Of the mouth that tells it it can’t be British.
This is the false hope that all of this racial and political strife will turn into tears and tears and tears drifting down every cheek in England, of every color, and we will, amid our tears, recognize that we have more in common than we thought, and that life is but a dream.
This is what it sounds like to be rid of your body but still have it, and love it; to transcend it.
This is sound as a form of rebellion, resistance. Of the bodily, of the body’s energy held in a lightness and shedding a soft, unspeakable tone: a light frequency you can’t see.
This is an inner emptiness. An identity mistaken for nothing. Something glossed over as nothing when in reality, it was something. Karmic imprints in our bodies. Traces of the past. Scorpions glowing at night from the moon’s ultraviolet light.
This is how to resist the temptation of a supposed utopic, post-racial space.
This is coming to terms with the beauty of anxiety, stress, physical pain, depression, and thoughts of inadequacy.
This is the sound of having something that they don’t want you to have and that you can’t get rid of. Something sinister, drifting quickly toward nebulousness. Something powerful. Something that you can’t speak of. Something unnameable.
This is how to repel the Evil Eye. How to allow your melancholic restlessness to morph into angelic postulation. How to start praying again. How to restart the ability to imagine who you are. How to redefine your limits.
This is the sound of a thin stench of burning bone coming from a kebab shop’s dumpster.
This is the sound of no end in site.