Album Review: Lushlife, “Cassette City”

Perhaps the best hip-hop album of 2009.

“Cassette City” has generated two major surprises for me.  I was convinced that Mos Def’s long awaited “The Ecstatic” would be, far and away, the best hip-hop album of 2009.  Surprise number one: Raj Haldar, a practically unknown artist from Philadelphia, trounced “The Ecstatic” with “Cassette City”, one of the first albums since the golden age of 1993-1998 Brooklyn rap to deserve similar distinction and praise.  Counter to the anticipation I felt for Mos’ album, Haldar came out of nowhere with the biggest breath of fresh air hip-hop has had in a while.

The second surprise was a negative one; I am one of the only people I know to hear of the album at all, much less to listen to it obsessively.

Vocal Performance

Rappers love to compare themselves to their counterparts of the mid-90’s: Biggie, Nas, Jay-Z, Big Punisher, et cetera.  These comparisons are practically always bogus.

Haldar’s vocal performance, while it doesn’t properly belong in the class mentioned above, is respectably close.  His voice is a clear tenor with crisp, precise syncopation.  Perhaps the most impressive thing about his delivery is the fact that it doesn’t stray from the beat; he stays right on top of it the whole way, pushing the tempo and supplying vibrant energy to the tracks.

There are a variety of axes upon which his performance could be rated.  As far as his flow is concerned, he makes heavy use of internal rhyming structures and is especially good at organizing the rhythmic patterns of his lines into a cohesive, evolving progression.  Listening to Lushlife rap is more like listening to water bubbling; the sounds progress rhythmically in a natural way, never leaping too far into a particular direction without taking you there first.  In the course of a rhyming scheme, he takes you from the original form through subtly changing intermediate forms, setting you down lightly upon the resolution.

Raj Haldar, aka “Lushlife”

The topic of his lyrics is appropriately light.  If anything, the album should be characterized as a series of vignettes into a productive night life.  While the meaning of his lyrics is not remarkably deep, this can be seen as a virtue — it renders the album appropriate for parties, long car drives, smaller social gatherings, etc.

While avoiding anything too political or angry, it also manages to avoid other hip-hop cliches.  Celebration of materialism and drug-use is certainly present in the album, but remains far away from the obnoxious obsession many albums heap upon these topics.  If anything, the album’s lyrical tone is refreshingly upbeat.

The strength of Haldar’s vocal performance is in the linguistic surface-forms he uses, not so much in the content.  This is fine, because anything too heavy would detract from the excellent production; if anything, the rapping is treated as another instrument or sample on the track.

Production

Raj’s vocal performance alone would make this album stand out.  It would perhaps even put it in the top 5 hip-hop albums of the past five years, regardless of the production value.  The nice surprise about “Cassette City” is that, despite the strength of its rapping, its production is the real triumph.

“Cassette City” manages to do something few albums, much less hip-hop albums, have been able to do tastefully.  Namely, it has a cohesive theme.

Most albums, especially hip-hop albums, bounce around in mood, content, and sound.  The tracks of “Cassette City” are made to be played together.  It feels like a crime to play just one song, or to play the songs out of order.  It’s one of the few albums where you can safely put it on track one and let it play through the end; it starts strong, ends strong, and has a coherent and gradual progression.  The album itself has crescendos and valleys, centering around and weaving various recurring themes.  Recognizing the variations on the central themes adds a complete, rounded feel to the album, and builds comfort and familiarity with the listener.

Every aspect of the production is on-point, from the production of the tracks themselves to their arrangement on the album.  Even the mixing is top-notch; when samples are used, they’re used tastefully and hearken back to the root of rap: soul.  The beat drops just at the right time, complementing Haldar’s percussive voice.  The instruments chosen on the tracks all complement each other remarkably well and are selected consistently from track to track, unlike many albums; this gives the back-beats of this album the feel of a landscape constructed from increasingly familiar elements.

General Conclusions

This album has too many virtues to list.  It works well in social gatherings of all sizes, especially if the people present are unschooled in hip-hop.  It’s remarkably accessible in this respect; the virtues of rap are well-developed here and on obvious, undeniable display.  Many of my friends who swore they hated rap have come around since listening to “Cassette City”.  It is very much a gateway drug.

The album is versatile in its appropriateness.  It complements work and long, solitary drives as well.  While it’s interesting enough musically to delve into and zone out to, it also can fade into the background without being too distracting.

Do yourself a favor: check out “Cassette City”, and tell your friends.  Even if hip-hop’s not your thing, give this one a shot.  It will surprise you.

Overall Rating: 10/10 for a combination of quality and timeliness.  This album is what hip-hop fans everywhere direly needed.