Review Summary: not the record that taught them to be a business.
There’s something instantly grabbing in
The ONE… COHESIVE, fourth record of Alabama-native-and-proud duo G-Side. Hearing the record play out, a lot of ST and Clova’s music feels fuelled by simple desire and ambition, by a want for being more than a small hip-hop act and the wish to be recognised as a fully-fledged music symbol. As guys who have spoken in interviews of working at gas stations and barber shops,
The ONE… still reflects this longing, and in a sense, their talk paints them as guys who want to be this and that rather than guys who
are- on “Y U Mad,” a track driven by this theme of frustration, they vent that “everybody in the crowd want to be on the stage / the stars look so bright when you come from a city of no lights.” But at the same time, G-Side have come into 2011 with such certainty, such assurance and experience, that it’s like watching them shed this part of themselves; no longer mere aspirers,
The ONE… has G-Side rapping about what often feels like the end of their journey into self-realisation and has their music boasting just as loudly, with the same fiery impatience to have its brilliance noticed. And that’s what gives it its tight grasp: this ambition, when channelled into the huge record G-Side has spawned with it, comes out a new thing. It comes out the other side as G-Side’s wannabe global masterpiece, their emblem in which ambition gets its payoff.
The ONE… is that payoff.
While confidence readies G-Side to make this masterpiece, it’s the knack for synthesis that makes
The ONE… such an achievement. ST and Clova are pacemakers first, and their record is certainly all about setting the tone: tracks as different in mood as “Pictures,” a track that’s basically about a guy staring at naked girls on his phone, and “Moneyintheskyii,” a track that rattles off the serious ambition G-Side embodies, are bolstered upward by their tremendous arrangements and the work of a very special production team indeed. The sprinkling of piano notes isn’t here and there; on “Moneyintheskyii” it’s used to launch G-Side into their verses, and let’s not forget where they find themselves, with the lines “if I don’t do this *** / my food don’t sit right / my heart beat too slow and my brain think too quick” backed by the symphony and pulsing beats to match their theme of compulsion.
It’s a perfect blend at all times, grandiose at every turn and with a production team that recognises the feeling behind ST and Clova’s words: the music is airy and groovy on the celebratory “Jones,” which is backed by boisterous percussion, but the mixture is serious and dignified when the duo explore their cerebral side, with the beats and violins on “Came Up” pounding home every line about what it means to be writing this song (S.LA.S.H’s lines “we all grind we all eat / we up late, don’t sleep / insomniacs, zombies at the crack of dawn trying to write a classic song” coming with particular bite). And how about that track about naked girls? “Pictures” is a track that proves G-Side has as much fuel for its pop side- even the hooks’ glitchy manipulation sounds like the result of working relationships between professionals, and with beat team Block Beattaz behind them, G-Side are just that.
The ONE… gets the best of both worlds, propelled to its grand nature through the charisma of G-Side and the execution of their lyricism, but given its push and pomp through its massive arrangements, through the electronics and instrumentation that back up- and size up- the duo.
There’s an argument for
The ONE… being another stepping stone, a way for G-Side to further explore the ins and outs of making their classic, and it comes to ahead almost immediately on “Shots Fired” in which they reminisce on the genesis of their project, going through the recording process of
Somethin’ To Hate (the record that taught them distribution and manufacturing),
Starshipz and Rocketz (recorded in a basement) and
Huntzville International (the one that took them international) before they’re ready to kick off their fourth. And they kick it off, huge beat and all, just as they boasted, as ambitious businessmen: “your business model is / us.” In that sense,
The ONE… could just be another example of a solid duo who know how to work off their own back, but it’s called
COHESIVE for a reason: whether or not it goes global, whether it could possibly be as huge as it purveys to be, ST and Clova have created far more than the work of businessmen with this, a record that’s huge but cohesive and always bubbling with forthright energy. A record with more than just a power-point on business to detail, but one with hooks that blow us out on “How Far” and brilliant, urgent verses to wisp us away elsewhere, such as last word “Imagine.”
The ONE… doesn’t feel like work for G-Side, rather it feels like a first love, a record that gives a hundred percent to garner every compliment it earns: flowing, smart, sexy, and even global to those who hear it and its grand tone. Its last verse asks, “Can you imagine success / can you imagine failure?” And let’s not undersell this:
The ONE… is a success and nothing but.
