|
A8020/CD Serengeti & Polyphonic Dont Give Up 2007 $10 |
|
Genre defying rapper Serengeti hooked up with avant producer Polyphonic the Verbose, to create a glitchy, electro futuristic rap album. Bursting with emotional vulnerability, Dont Give Up inhabits a space beyond the boundaries of traditional rap music - Polyphonic's cut-up synths, beautiful cello melodies and rabid Atari rhythms perfectly complement Serengeti's off-kilter verses.
The lyrics are seeped in introspection and nostalgia of past relationships, both romantic and familial. They also examine heavy political and social undertones. “Part raw confessional a la Rollins, part Kool Keith abstraction... with a touch of madness. Viva la weird,” is how XLR8R described Serengeti. The vocals are wrapped in Polyphonic's sonically jagged, turbulent production that PopMatters labeled “a dreamscape of noise, where warehouse glitch and hip-hop bounce exist peacefully.”
Unique in a field saturated with golden-era traditionalists and hipster booty rap, Dont Give Up charts a course to an alternative future for hip-hop.
#4 Most Added on the CMJ Hip Hop Radio Chart!
2 Weeks in CMJ Top 40 Hip-Hop!
#5 on Canada's Hip-Hop Chart Attack
#10 on Canada's Earshot Hip-Hop Chart
:::: Reviews
Okayplayer.com
Rap Album of 2007! "Music that is all at once beautiful, affecting, relatable, and thought-provoking ... "
read more
Okayplayer.com (again!)
"the music is beautiful ... [Serengeti's] off-kilter singing adds to that exponentially. And Polyphonic's array of sonic textures ... is rapturous. ...already one of my favorite discs of the year."
read more
Popmatters
"It’s a good weird, noisy and then quiet, organic while also artificial, melodramatic and moody, but it’s also painstakingly detailed and marvelous and all kinds of pretty.... Don’t Give Up is a work of art, actually, that stacks up best as an album—a real album and not simply a collection of songs.""
read more
Tangible Sounds
"Has Thom Yorke started fucking with Wu Tang? ... Probably the most anti-commercial rap album since Fear Of A Black Planet. It’s about time."
read more
Underground Sound Mag
"Serengeti grew a beard and is on some sad rap shit and it’s awesome... it’s pretty impossible not to love."
read more
Impose Magazine
"Musically ahead of its time while lyrically speaking in real time, Serengeti & Polyphonic have created an album that will likely get better with age."
read more
Treble Magazine
"Serengeti & Polyphonic try to find all of the usuals of rap music on Don't Give Up, and purposefully go against them in varying degrees, from many different angles, turning more rap into music, and more music into rap."
read more
XLR8R
"brilliantly textured production .... With nods to microhouse, drum & bass, dub, and ambient sounds, Polyphonic's beats have an entirely unique, otherworldly feel to them."
read more
Tiny Mix Tapes
"absolutely brilliant ... an important addition to experimental hip-hop’s ever-growing history"
read more
IMAGEYENATION.COM
"easily one of the best Hip-Hop albums of 2007"
read more
Washington City Paper
"Plainly ambitious... all brands of hip-hop fans can get behind this record, which seeks to appeal not to music critics but to anyone who’s ever hurt someone they loved, fucked up their own future, or stared their own mortality in the face."
read more
ERASOUL
"Glitched out, electro-hop madness for the adventurous."
read more
ALARM Magazine
"organically infused electro-ambience.... a mash-up of glitchy, modern sounds."
read more
PlugInMusic.com
"those who like their music to come straight from leftfield will adore this piece of nostalgic existentialism."
read more
The Celebrity Cafe
"The deep voiced vocalist brings a sexiness [Serengeti!?!?] to each song along with the futuristic rhythms that will entice listeners."
read more
:::: Track Listing
1 eleven
2 puppydog love
3 lately i havent been feeling well
4 slew of things differently
5 praha
6 2 times 2
7 waste of time
8 dont fear the mimes
9 rambo
10 mom's a commie
11 dont give up
12 sunrise