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Author
nofrillz
Publication
The Find Magazine
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We all know what we were expecting. Breathe was baited in wrought anticipation of Nicolay expanding on his beautiful Boom Bap sound & Phonte to keep on hitting those verbal Hat Tricks/Home Runs. In terms of content, the boys came straight out of leftfield. In terms of quality, they delivered & then some.
Rumours had been circulating wireless airwaves for months, before a single track was heard, that Phonte was gonna let those vocal cords loose this time out. But I don't think anyone outside of Phonte and Nicolay themselves knew what was in store. Maybe the concept that was undertaken is what prompted the change. As superb as Phonte is at showing his emotion as an MC (see All For You), there is something about a well sung vocal that better reflects love and relationships. No purposely flawed vocals, no wheezy whines, no vocorders and no autotune to be found anywhere, Phonte is the perfect foil for Nic's lush soundscapes. When the lead single dropped I, like every other fan, grabbed it as soon as we knew it was around.
Now, when I first clapped ears on it, I wouldn't say I was underwhelmed but it wasn't all that I expected. I now think that, speaking from personal experience, it was always supposed to have that effect. By my sixth or seventh listen I was loving the album just like everyone else was. But one glaring bit of genius about the selection of the first single - quite apart from the fact that it was/is a free download - is that it is probably about midtable of a list of the best tracks on the album. This too had to be the plan from the outset. It was definitely a worthwhile plan, too, seeing as the resulting opus is such a superbly crafted piece of musical engineering.
For an album with such a cascade of sound to be virtually sample free is not only an extreme rarity these days but also carries a strong element of risk, given the change of direction from the first effort. We the listener could have just as easily gone against this album because of that change. For an album that so obviously bases itself on all that is right with Hip-Hop and R&B, it lends itself to too many other genres for it to be classified under either. And quite frankly trying to do so would be doing its creators a grave disservice. I billed Connected as beautiful hip-hop. Leave It All Behind is beautiful music.
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