Man, I’ve been waiting for this one! Whenever one of my two choices for premier lyricist of the new generation and one of the most underrated producers come together, you just know it’s going to be a HIT! And with a third instalment nonetheless, but could anyone have expected this? I definitely didn’t, and now it’s my job to share the news with the rest of you! So let’s go!
This is the brand-new album by MC KnowItAll and Producer Skip The Kid, and together they drop a third series with ten tracks that honestly made my fucking night! I was blown away by the quality provided!
If we start with the production side of things! Because as I’ve come to realise over the years, it is that Skip is a master of simplified loop beats with a powerful edge to them! He can take a few core layers and create a cinematic score worthy of any major film.
The type of beats that you can swear your body is morphing into a whole new atmosphere with each new instrument you hear and vocal loop! This felt less like a collection of songs and more like a treaty of badass, compelling, and creative ballads that create the scene for a sonic adventure you don’t ever want to come out of!
For example, let’s start with the intro track – Let’s Take ‘ Em Back with those sharp chord progressions, slow and methodical drums, and distorted vocal harmonies! There’s also some super light shimmering keys that help provide a touch of extra texture to the song! I’m also 90% sure the track was sped up somewhere in the middle, the tempo overall, which sounded dope as fuck!
There’s the track – Going Down with those slow and intense plucked strings with those menacing bass and that non-stop vocal harmony saying ‘Going Down’, and with just these three main elements, he’s able to create an immersive instrumental that could mop the floor with most beats you hear today!
What about the track – Time Again where he pulls out a more funky and groovy instrumental with those sharp chords, infectious bass, and that hypnotic vocal harmony that makes you feel like you’re listening to an underground soul track! Shit, you’d think you’d hear in the 70s! Absolutely ridiculous beat.
In my opinion, Skip is the poster child for those rough around the edge, loop-fantastical type beats that the underground has since taken advantage of! Always a pleasure to cover his music!
Now onto KnowItAll! Again, one of only two standard bearers in the modern day. He never fails to impress me when he drops an album, and he hasn’t started yet! God, what a performance! I love how he always emphasises the importance of true and heartfelt ‘lyricism’ on the tracks he’s on! Not just treating it as an afterthought over aura!
Across these ten tracks, we hear a true modern-day poet give us a masterclass in the art of the pen. He’s a man who makes sure you can feel everything he writes down in your soul! From his ever-so-vivid stories to his more brash yet always descriptive one-liners to his flexing of the English language, he makes sure it’s all felt like a ton of bricks to the ears as you sit back and enjoy a master at all!
The fact that he chooses the type of original course beats such as Skip’s to go in is a treat in its own right. He’s someone who would even go off on million-dollar studios, but he’s choosing the most one-of-a-kind beat makers to help utilise his talents just like he did with Bop Phases on Welfare Island! He knows who to call to suit his dynamic penmanship, and that’s fucking incredible!
As someone who has always been in love with literature and poetry since a pre-teen, I seek out artists like him for this exact reason. For his constant elevation and appreciation of the written (and in this case, spoken word), his keen sense of vocabulary, and pinpoint accuracy with his words and how to convey and manipulate them across these beats makes him, in my humble opinion, one of the most stand out MC’s we have right now.
But please, if you don’t want to take my word for it, then peep it in the link below and feel the impressive game for yourself; these guys are two peas in a pod for their own reasons!
https://knowitall2.bandcamp.com/album/music-saved-me-3
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