Comments (1) ... Harvey Lindo's "Kid Gloves - A Modaji Long Player" is about fresh and uplifting as jazz infected hip-hop and midtempo soul can get. I just feel better everytime I listen to it. Which isn't to say it's all sunshine and fluffy clouds. The lyrics aim straight and hit hard, but the musical and beat delivery is so smooth you'll barely see them coming. In many ways it reflects Harvey Lindo's own hope for so much more to come from this release. With mouths to feed and bills to pay, he's constructed these 12 tracks carefully, and you can feel the love he's put behind every break and pad.

1. Tomorrow's World (feat. Lacks)
2. Lifeforce (feat. Phillipa Alexander)
3. Rugged Individuals (feat. Count Bass D)
4. The Here And The Now (feat. Tableek & Hanif from Maspyke)
5. Miller's Lattice
6. Gameshow (Low Risk Factor)(feat. Phillipa Alexander)
7. This Lonely Girl (feat. Roddy Rod from Maspyke)
8. The Times (feat. Kat Johnson)
9. Fifth Cicuit Rapture
10. A Slow Decay (feat. Tableek & Hanif from Maspyke)
11. Butterfly (feat. Phillipa Alexander)
12. Kalima

A number of vocalists jump into it, from Lacks, Phillipa Alexander, Count Bass D, to Tableek & Hanif (from Maspyke), Roddy Rod (from Maspyke), and Kat Johnson.

"Tomorrow's World" comes off like sunrise in the middle of the dirty city. Lacks provides the rap over some smoothed out breaks. The way the lyrical rap leads into the sung vocal chorus is so nice. Yeah, life's hard, but if you don't feel like anything's possible when you listen to this cut, you've got bigger problems. Lindo makes it happen here.

"Rugged Individuals" featuring Count Bass D is, for lack of a better way to put it, one of the dopest cuts on the album. It's got a gritty jazz flavor in its instrumentation with lyrical delivery like Bass D's on the down low. It all comes together (subtly but undeniably) in the chorus verse, backed some nice low-key piano and turntablism. Deep, deep, dirty groove!

"The Here And The Now" brings Maspyke's Tableek and Hanif to the stage for some flavor that drops like A Tribe Called Quest. Phillipa Alexander and Kat Johnson give the jazzed-out, sometimes Latin-ized, hip-hop breaks a soulful, female touch, and bring the album into a dimension of style that makes it wholly unforgettable. Ten years ago their tracks would have been pegged triphop, but they're more like urban soul, in the vein of Supreme Beings of Leisure or perhaps Coco And The Bean.

Heavy with jazz influence and indie hip-hop style, (as far as Properly Chilled is concerned) Harvey Lindo's "Kid Gloves" is going to sit high on a short list of the best hip-hop albums to come out this year. Seek it out.

Add a Comment