Album Review: Lushlife- Cassette City

15 years ago view-show 631,917

lush-1_phixr1In the music business, having the ability to cut out the middleman is always a plus.

Besides being a lyricist, if you’re able to construct your own beats as well, then that alone will relieve a huge amount of tension when it comes to releasing projects.

You don’t have to dig deep to find MC’s who double as producers, but one person you should add to your list if he isn’t already is Philadelphia native Lushlife.

Serving as everything holy on his latest offering Cassette City, he plays the role of MC, producer, and instrumentalist (meaning he actually knows how to use real live instruments).

With the likes of Camp Lo [Click for Camp Lo interview] virtually being the only guests on the album, Lushlife lets loose a barrage of lyricism that’s equivalent to an AK-47 with a broken safety, while showing he’s more than capable of producing in the process.

Filled with elements of Hip-Hop, indie rock, electronica, and jazz, Lushlife’s Cassette City begins its play list with instant repeat songs like, ‘Daylight Into Me,’ ‘Until The Sun Dies,and the guitar-riddled ‘The Songbird Athletic.

‘Meridian Sound (Part One)’ and ‘Innocence Reprise’ can be considered as breaks in the album, due to the fact of them only being instrumental tracks, where the listener fully gets the opportunity to take in Lushlife’s style of eclectic sound mastery.

Camp Lo lends a hand on ‘Another Word For Paradise,and the legendary duo fits right in perfectly behind the horn-oriented track. The only flaw in ‘Meridian Sound (Part Three),is that Lushlife drops one single verse over production that deserves to be laid into just a little bit more.

Other than that, Lushlife’s Cassette City ranks as one of the best well put together projects of this year (so far), with plenty of contributions geared towards those who appreciate real Hip-Hop.

But with every good comes some bad, because even though Cassette City may ooze with solidarity, however it also stands a chance of getting slept on, for not meeting the standards that rule today’s airwaves.

With that being the only major setback, fans that do come across Cassette City will be embraced with an artist obsessed with rhyming 100 words into each bar, and his pure talent of beat making that mirrors no one else in such an over saturated field—and an artist who’s able to separate themselves from the norm is always worth listening to…

Rating: 4.0

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