Review Summary: It's a bird, it's a plane, no it's Jeremiah Jae's moment of bliss on Wild west journey with beat machine instead of colt
When debut Jeremiah's album Raw Money Raps stands as a most unique LP released in 2012. The most hip-hop heads interested in experimental subsection of hip-hop looking forward what next chicago native MC slash producer will bring on the table in 2013. And he brought literally wild west. This mixtape is musical caricature of early 60's spaghetti westerns and TV series Rawhide. And believe me or not, it brings storm, with lyrical skills of for me unknown rapper Oliver the 2nd but especially for production by Brainfeeder's newcomer Jeremiah Jae.
As i said entire rap here is just as good as it sounds but in forefront on that mixtape is Jeremiah, with his beats which sounds sharper than Clint Eastwood marksmanship abilities in Rawhide series. Beats for the most of time don't have that "hyper experimental cloak" like on Raw Money Raps but it's crafted with deadly precision for beats enthusiasts. To be honest rappers here sounds like mix between Blu and MF Doom if you are familiar with those 2 rappers you should easily imagine how Oliver the 2nd, Jeremiah Jae and other guests sounds here. I think that style of some kind of monotonous flow is highly dependent on beats. Because many people may argue that kind of flow is boring.
So my theory is, with good ear for the beat you can sound excellent or otherwise blend into sea of boringness if the beat doesn't fit well. Thanks god RawHyde mixtape is not a boring project to be honest it's opposite, it's project created by hip hop lovers, for hip hop lovers which grows with each next listening.
First part of LP sounds more convential but there is a huge transition since track 9 called "The Block" into more experimental musical landscape. Beats kicking so hard, tracks like "Poor man's Gold" and "Get of the Horse" are perfect example how vigorous and bombastic that music sounds. Style or musical concept of those tracks have common features with project like "No York" by Blu released back in 2011 (I am not sure right now about released year but whatever), but where Blu spat most of time over production which sounds like something between old washing mashine and sounds from Super Mario video game. Oliver the 2nd has handy mature production provided by 21 years old Jeremiah. To be honest that production is like magic Oliver sounds even better than he really is.
Not only tracks with hard hitting beats you can find here, but also slow some kind of spacious, more "poetic" beats. Like tracks "Outlaw Theme" and my the most favourite one from this project "Purple Moonshine Part 1" Those tracks are heavy sampled and minimalistic but it sounds really great. Virtuosity on those tracks and musical progress of Jeremiah is mind bending.
As I said first part of that LP is a bit weaker, not bad, but definitelly weaker but you can find there a few standout songs as well, like "Billy Kid" and "Pistols". It's a bit a shame that first part isn't as bombastic as second one.
This project impresed me on many layers of musicianship and I can do nothing less than recommend this to all true fans of "different" sounding Hip Hop. I just can't stand the fact that nobody rate this mixtape or even add it on sputnik music library. It's under the radar project and I don't know why because up to date it's for sure the best hip hop LP released in 2013. I feel sorry that the CD was not released as a physical copy it definitelly deserves it.
My rating for this mixtape balancing somewhere between 4.0-4.5 and for now I put 4.5 with no regrets.
Thanks for reading my review support real music and listen to this!
