Posted by The sound of Mobb Deep. It didn’t fade so much as mutate. For Amani & King Vision Ultra, it’s as if Mobb Deep’s insomniac grind finally wore out. There’s no nostalgia on ‘An Unknown Infinite’. The album might be birthed from that New York sound, but the city, it’s legacy, they respect it too much not to add something to it.
‘Scrapes’ is a kind of boom bap comedown. An aftermath. I love the bass on this: lethargic but dub heavy, Keith Hudson heavy. There’s this other presence too. Noise that doesn’t disrupt so much as seethe alongside. Then comes ‘Holyfield’, the first we hear from Amani.
Amani’s late entrance – after Elucid’s free-form splices on ‘Scrapes’, and the quasi-mixtape intro from the one and only Monie Love – is an ode to classics like Ghostface’s ‘Ironman’, an album where the main MC is confident enough to bide his time.
The beat here is bizarre, all door hinge lurch. Thank King Vision Ultra – or Geng as he’s otherwise known. As on his chopped and slowed tribute to Black Sabbath, what he does is trace threads. Not a post-genre scramble, more synthesis via through lines, hidden connections. Hip-hop has always had that element.
Meanwhile Amani wastes not a word on the record with his austere flow. ‘“When you put your money where your mouth is you talk timid” goes the hook of ‘A Not So Fruitful Wealth – you can imagine The Bug losing his shit over this track.
Where Mobb Deep spoke in Darwinist terms, a survival of the fittest, Amani and Geng point to the collective. They said as much on the Call Out Culture podcast. “Everybody involved, it’s all their record as well”, insists Amani – what Brian Eno called scenius. It’s a group ethos that carries through. Whether it’s Ahwlee, Akai Solo, or Maasai, no player is background or foreground.
Listening back to their interview on Call Out Culture, I love how Geng lays out his approach. Rather than obsessive mapping out, it seems to be one of faith, synchronicity. Have patience and let the pieces fall into place. For their first outing as a pair, Amani and Geng already seem to have this intuitive telepathy. I for one hope it’ll be the first of many collaborations.
9/10
Words: Eden Tizard
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