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The Record Playas is a three-man production team hailing
from the south side of Chicago and consists of DJ Mind, DJ Noble &
Jesus. This windy city production team first appeared on Nico B’s “Flo
Products” off of Audio 8 recordings and since then has went on to produce
their own debut compilation album “Soundtrack For Days”. With the Record
Playas you can expect that true essence of Hip-Hop to be brought back to
life. Their production mirrors the glory days of Hip-Hop, with a more
simplistic formula of classic kicks and snares along with and a dusty sound
that can only come straight from the underground.
With
“Soundtrack For Days” we get a mixed bag of both positive and negatives.
The positives are the vast amount of emcees called upon for the album; some
of the more noticeable include Manifest Destiny, Pugzlee Atomz, Nico B
& Infinito among others. Manifest Destiny comes through with the albums
best cut “Manifest The Solution”, where they offer their own brand of
political insight. “Separations of classes is blatant as ever, I thought
9-11 was gonna bring us all together. I stand corrected, how silly of me.
The laws they passed benefit them, really not me. But they still have the
nerve to say its us they representing, only time they hear us out is when
they are up for re-election”. The album’s “Intro” by Nico B & Adad is
also a solid effort, complete with a nice but simplistic production effort
by the Record Playas. Most of the album features this similar formula of
production, with your basic drum pattern and soulful melody.
“Environmental
Products” featuring Erebus features one of the finer production efforts,
which is complete with a nice piano loop and scratching in the hook.
Infinito’s “Nobody 2017” is another hidden gem that features a great vocal
sample and haunting beat, which engulfs Infinto’s style and persona
perfectly. The album also features a lot of hungry up and coming artists
that take full advantage of their opportunities such as Mos High on “All We
Want”, Seel on “Generation Lost” & Clew Rock on “No Clew”.
However,
while most aspects of the album play out nicely, “Soundtrack For Days” is
cluttered with some big problems. For starters the twenty-four track album
drags on at an abysmal pace, leaving it nearly impossible for the listener
to sit through the album in one sitting. It will take most listeners a
great deal of time to delve into the album, as the vast amount of
independent emcees tends to blend together the first couple listens,
leaving it hard to decipher any standout tracks. And while the Record
Playas production style is a breath of fresh air, they tend to follow a
very similar trend for each of their tracks, leaving a lot of the songs on
the album sounding repetitive and boring. Tracks such as “Oh Pacman”
featuring Thigahmahjigge, “Proper Demonstration” by Bamski The Bigot and
“Smoke Jack” featuring Nico B & Noble all feature lackluster production
that do nothing to help each emcee’s cause. It’s tracks like these that
unfortunately make the album very monotone at times, leaving the listener
yearning for something different.
While
the Record Playas “Soundtrack For Days” has its share of problems which
need to be resolved, the album does a great job of showcasing Chicago’s
booming underground scene, along with the Record Playas production style.
The album is filled with some very memorable tracks, even though it may
take you along time to actually get into the album. With twenty-four
tracks, “Soundtrack For Days” should have been cut down to fifteen or so
tracks, leaving out a lot of the filler material. While the Record Playas
definitely have a distinct production style that works, in the future they
need to add more variety into their style in order to truly produce a great
album. A lot of the concepts and emcees featured on the album bring a nice
touch, but too many times we are left listening to the same type of songs.
Hopefully in the future the Record Plays can fix these problems, as they
truly are good producers, they just need to continue working on their
craft. For more info on the Record Playas visit Recordplayas.com or
Audio8.com.
- DJ L.K. (Low Key)
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