The turn of this decade has witnessed a spike in the innovation that producers invest into making new kinds of music– genre-bending samples, a fusion of genres and styles, collaboration; you name it, it is happening. “Around” by Proklaim– a Namibian artist focused on delivering soulful music with a message, experiments with such styles. Keep reading for my take on this recipe!
The song finds itself quite heavy on the hip-hop side of things while managing to blend it with a healthy dose of afro, and tasteful additions of RnB to go– with synths in the background that take me back to “After Hours” by The Weeknd (what a banger!). The whole track has a whole zest of energy that makes itself known at just the right times, yielding itself to a great, groovy sound that is sure to make even the most sedentary at a club start jiving around.
In case it is not very obvious already, I am a big fan of fusion styles, especially when two styles give to each other as much as they receive from each other– and I am glad to report that that is the case here. The mix remains tight, old-school rap style, handing the centre stage to the effortless flow and the potent bassline, with all the instruments lining up right behind them to present a powerful, moving sound. The sampling work in the background also stands out as quite impressive, with the adlibs and subtle chorusing standing out as well.
With “Around”, Proklaim has a banger for their latest release, and there is more than a small chance that you will keep coming back to this song, the way I did all throughout listening and analysing this song for my review. Check out “Around” by Proklaim here!
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