Unfortunately, most of our music decisions are influenced by algorithms unless you stay analog AF or are truly putting in work to stay in the scene or even just in the know. It’s a lot of work to keep up with what is really good music and when it actually drops… at this point we just need to find our way to the right music and when that marriage happens, it can shift moods. To me, Denzel Curry is one of the very few emcees that can help you shift the state of mind you’re in through his delivery and passion in his pen, delivery, and energy… Match him up over the right production and it has the chance to be special… I think this new Denzel Curry and Kenny Beats aka Kenneth Blume album deserves your attention… But before we get to that, let’s get to this…
This isn’t their first time working with each other. This new project, titled ii dropped last month and it is a follow up to their 2020 project, UNLOCKED.
So you already know these artists work well together and you should already know that Kenneth Blume (fka Kenny Beats) has a great ear and can span different sounds to keep a listener’s attention. His 2022 album, LOUIE was one of my favorite projects that year and going back and listening now, it’s one of my favorite albums of the past few years… I like how the album was structured… the features… the sounds. Just let the visualizer run for a few minutes on the living room TV with your family around… you might just be able to keep playing it.
If you’re a hip hop fan, you know Kenny Beats but you might just not put two and two together here… You ever hear that “Whoa Kenny” producer tag on songs…. Let me give you a quick example… Here is Kenny Beats on production for “Slick Talk” where you can hear the “Whoa Kenny” drop at 0:12 and then those drums just knock and that little pager sound keeps my attention as an audience member… then the beat flip? and let’s not skip over the fact that J.I.D. absolutely murked the production… Have Kenny Beats and JID worked with each other before? Maybe just 1 track I’m seeing?
I feel like Kenny Beats has been quiet for a minute but going back to the start of this, our listening habits are controlled by algorithms so he might have dropped and it just didn’t find it’s way through to me. But shout out to my Spotify algo which found me this week with its Kenny Beats and Denzel Curry recommendation for their new album/EP/project, ii. I started listening earlier this week and was instantly locked in on what I was hearing… So whenever that happens, I need to write something about it and share some tracks across socials and just tell people about the new release… I’m not somebody who reviews albums with a score… I just let you know if I think it’s worth your attention… and this new Denzel Curry and Kenneth Blume album deserves your time…
The content is on point as it always has been… the storytelling is there… the project sounds really good… overall I think you need to go press play on this…
It’s hard for any of us to pay attention to anything for more than 12 seconds… it’s sad but true… well as a listener, I found this production to keep my fingers off my phone or my finger off my headphone to press to the new song… from that first song on the album called “GONE FISHING” to the visualizer, this track is really dope. It just seems like a warped sounding production and the extra sounds that pop have me waiting for what’s next… this beat is hard… this verse is hard… this song is hard.
I’ve probably listened to this track 10 times this week alone… But it’s not just this song on repeat… There are a easy 4 songs on the 9 song album that I have on repeat… And I don’t find filler songs here… The features all do their thing… Kenny did his thing… Denzel did his thing…. I’m just saying… This album deserves your attention.
I also think it’s cool that you can find this album now and then have so much new music to listen to if you’re not up on Kenny Beats or Denzel Curry… you go down those rabbit holes and you will have new music to listen to until the rest of the year, real talk…. So don’t sleep…. please…. just go listen and give the project your time… and then when you are ready to check out more, I think just go here…
and then right here….
Here’s the Spotify embed for those that don’t feel like clicking over to Spotify and actually typing out the album’s name.