Age Appropriate
By
Oxygen
Album Review
Long Island based emcee and DJ Oxygen (aka Ox The Architect)
has been a part of Hip Hop for years. Going under various names including MC
Just Divine, Jonzhaft the Psychopath and also a part of the crew Sputnik Brown,
You will also know him for his work, more recently, with Soundsci, SPOX PhD
(with DJ Spinna) and The Rampagers (alongside Phill Most Chill, Emskee and
Jorun Bombay).
Since 2015 he has been collaborating with AE Productions
here in the UK and first appeared on the outstanding self-titled album by The
Fabreeze Brothers. Since then he has appeared on AE releases from the Cut
Beetlez (appearing as part of Sounsci on Droppin’ Needles) and his single
release Body Language (produced by Paul Nice and which does not appear on this
album).
This eagerly anticipated album marks his return to AE
Productions and is the perfect platform for such a seasoned Hip Hop emcee to
display his experience in Hip Hop and the world at large. Covering topics from
verbal dexterity to more personal issues, the album is very much looking to be
a showcase for one for the finest, and possibly underrated, emcees out there.
Produced entirely by Tea Sea Records owner and
Multi-talented producer/MC Tom Caruana, Age Appropriate features some tracks
that some of you will already be familiar with such as 33.3, The Process and Guillotine 16’s, all previously released
as singles they now appear on the album as all brand new versions that had a better
fit with the overall soundscape co-ordinated by Tom Caruana so every track on
the album is new material.
As with my recent review of AE’s release of the album from
Truck, this is another release that is a full package.
As they explain here:
We’re also treated to some help from
Emskee, Dr Becket, Jesus Mason, BusCrates, Apani, Jack Jones and U-George plus
some turntable duties covered by DJ Presyce and Jazz Spastiks. The timeless
design by artwork supremo Mr Krum perfectly encapsulates the contents of the
album.
With all this said, I have hyped you enough. Let’s get into the album
track by track as I give you my thoughts and feelings:
Kicking it all off is Victory
at Last, right out of the gate you get a feel for the vibe of this album
with Ox displaying his verbal skills for wordplay and storytelling right and
kind of beat that instantly gets the head nodding, whilst still be chilled and
that vibe has you floating into Actual
fact, featuring the silky voice of Apani as Ox takes us back in the days
with audible visions of some of his personal experiences in Hip Hop. Guillotine 16s drops with that proper
boom bap beat and posse cut vibe with the emcee’s wordplay displayed to the
highest, featuring Emskee, Dr Becket and Jesus Mason alongside Ox.
Let’s kick it back a bit on the laid back vibe of 7 Year Itch as Ox takes us through his
experiences with a certain woman, the kind of story some us can associate with.
Good and bad, those experiences in life are all out there for us to live and
learn from. So, from on lady to another on Do
Your Homework as Ox spins a light-hearted tale, over a light-hearted beat,
of getting involved with the wrong one. If you like a bit of funk in your life,
and let’s be honest who doesn’t, then the beat on Angles is about as funky as you can get. Featuring Jesus Mason and
Jack Jones, this track again sees some proper dope wordplay being spun
seamlessly by all involved.
Picking up the pace a bit and the beat pounds along as Ox schools
us to the ups, downs and the work you gotta put in on the Daily Grind. We all see some of those around getting stuck in the
same old ways and Ox is no different with the people he meets along the way and
Circles is a bit of an insight into
some of those experiences, all over a jazzy laid back beat that will have you
grinning, it did me anyway. Some things have a bigger impact on us than others
and For U, featuring UGeorge, is all
about being an artist and the things you are part of and also the things you
miss watching his daughter grow up and you can’t get much more personal and
bigger in life than this and any one with children can feel this.
It’s back to the boom bap with The Process. This one is proper heavy track and features Emskee and
Dr Becket. The process of life is one we all live and that process has a wealth
of experiences that shape us into who we are and this track gives that to you
straight. From Boom bap to Jazz influences on 33.3 as the track takes through influences and the evolution of
Oxygen. Keeping that jazz influence going on Code Red, as Ox takes us through some of the ups and downs he has
seen in Hip Hop stateside. We are in to the last track of the album, Seven Windows, which features
BusCrates, is a chilled out laid back vibe with Ox taking us inside his mind,
what he sees and what it means to him as he travels, day to day, through life
and the current society.
This is a proper powerhouse of an album, end of story, from
exactly how the music flows from beginning to end, to how Oxygen crafts his
lyrical delivery to perfection on each track. Also, the selection of the guest
artist fits exactly with whole vibe of the album.
For me this album displayed an almost perfect balance both
musically and lyrically. Musically, it flowed so well as the vibe of each track
didn’t detract from the previous or following track and you could say exactly
the same for the flow of the lyrics across the tracks. It is like a person
paddling on a river. The river is the music flowing across differing terrains,
it speeds up, slows down and changes direction to suit and Oxygen and the guest
artists are like the canoeists, who have to match the flow of the river. That’s
what came to me as I listened to this album, I’m not feeling individual tracks
but, a vision which everything is crafted around, be it visions of life’s
experiences or anecdotal stories to dexterous manipulation of word flows, it’s
all here and it all works.
Credit goes to Tom Caruana for creating that whole musical vibe
and direction for the album and must have been a pleasure craft this on a musical
level. Oxygen, of course, has brought the whole thing to life with his vivid
storytelling and articulate word flows which bled perfectly to allow us really
feel what he putting across and credit also goes to the guest artists and the
DJ’s who also perfectly fit with the vision for the album, if they had not got
it right then the whole thing would be lacking something but, it isn’t. What it
is is pure listening pleasure. I would like to give a mention to the DJ’s who
provided the cuts. For me a Hip Hop album is lacking without cuts and DJ
Presyce and the Jazz Spastiks really polished it all off.
It was such a pleasure to review Age Appropriate, which really
does give the listener a little of everything they want to hear from a Hip Hop
album and is definitely one for your collection.
Huge respect to AE Productions for asking me to review this album,
make you head over to their website and check out the album and everything else
they have, including those featuring Oxygen of course.
Till next time,
I’m outta here...
Steve
Great review - thanks Steve!
ReplyDeleteYour welcome
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