When you try to imagine powerhouse Dream duo, who do you envision? Which pair is in the forefront of your mind that gets you most excited and a team that you’d trade a left arm just to hear come to life!
Well, for me. This is a pair I wouldn’t have expected in a million lifetimes and yet one that has me the most excited this year! Two men who have revolutionised the game in their own lanes, coming together to create a modern-day masterpiece. Let’s talk about it!
This is the brand-new, collaborative project between Bronze Nazareth, who this time is dusting off his mic and returning to the MC role as he leaves the production in the hands of one of the most legendary to ever do it, Apollo Brown! Together, they dropped 12 tracks, 43 minutes, and the features of
-Love Jones
-Eddie Kaine to assist in the dominating effort of Magic on this record!
I feel like I want to start with Bronze today on the mic. Not just because it’s his full-length return to the mic as he’s been owning the beat-making lane but because he truly puts his best foot forward across this album and showcases why he’s one of the biggest, if not (the biggest), double threats in the underground!
From the opening track, we hear Bronze deliver his personalised fusion of charismatic, passionate, and methodical verses that feel like gold mines across the production!
With every word dropped, he soaks his bars in precise timing, sharp deliveries, intricate and powerful vocabulary blended with his uncanny flow and rhythm!
He feels like a street scholar on the beat. Like he’s schooling the culture in a lesson of ‘How To MC Act 1’, he’s performing with confidence, intelligence, and street poetry that makes every bar delivered feel like an immersive soundscape that transports the listener into the situations described and makes it feel like we were there ourselves and feel the emotions portrayed!
He has such an incredible way with words. In fact, he doesn’t just ‘spit bars’; he lays down in-depth realism art that can be processed through the ear and translated to the mind for a full-blown drench of real-life feelings, mentality, and spirituality that can be felt by the world due to his incredible talent in making the verses as vivid and lively as possible!
To hear him rap alongside Eddie Kaine for me was one of the best moments of 2025. No fade to Love, he absolutely killed his verse as well, but as someone who has been following Eddie for the past few years now, to hear him go up against Bronze was something I not only wasn’t expecting but one that lived up to the hype 100x fold! Perfect single to promote the record!
Into the mythology of Apollo Brown. The man who happens to somehow get better with every new release, and this album is no exception! What he accomplishes on this record in the 12 tracks is a balanced tightrope between
‘Old School, Raw, and Skeletal’ and ‘Cinematic, Theatrical, and Larger Than Life’. Most tracks feature this balance, while others showcase one of the two presets. Either way, it’s all phenomenal!
We start the record off with a track ‘Next Dream’ which has a somber, atmospheric vibe to it. Those plucked guitar strings and subtle keys in the background with slight static sounds in the background, as if you’re listening to a vinyl, give it that extra layer of ‘nostalgic’ with a thought-provoking speech given on the intro track to set the mood!
As we continue into the official rapping side of things, we get the track ‘Banshee Walk’ and he lays down some of the dopest and freshest G-Funk music I’ve heard in the modern day!
Those gorgeous synth chords. Those groovy and infectious synth chords, and those drums! It all comes together for a tight 3-minute banger that taunts over the rest of the record!
I love how on tracks like ‘Enough Lord’ we get back to that classic, cinematically surreal production Apollo is legendary for! We have these methodical drum patterns, with those light strings in the background and of course that beautifully executed vocal snippets that loops its way in and out of the beat giving the track an overall ‘Soul/Smooth’ texture!
As far as production goes, I’d have to say my favourite track would have to be ‘Lavender’ because it’s been a minute since I’ve heard a track come together in such cinematic, raw elegance the way this one did!
You’ve got those horns in a hypnotic loop motion in the background, with those heavy handed drums with that incredible thudding bass!
Of course we can’t mention this track without that magically utilised vocal snippet that Apollo has crafted to be the star of the track! Absolutely infectious!
This is the track where Love goes OFF on! Even though I’d never heard of him until now he absolutely killed it and left me wanting more!
Apollo Brown doesn’t make music, he makes life long memorabilia in music form. The kind of art that decades after its release gets studied and debated by experts and fans alike. The level of creativity and detail that continues to stun the culture, audience and artists! This man is one of the most perfectionist minded people in the industry today and he only has one mode of mind: Classics and that’s all he delivers.
With this album, he continues to out do himself yet again teaming up with the most sought after and respected duel threats in the industry today and when they came together as one, that’s the definition of ‘The Modern Day Classic: Funeral For A Dream’
https://open.spotify.com/album/2fo2pTBcrcwzP5xbyUGMC9?si=JcYPCpHARvGKDGL2DNTywA
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