I realized something when I reached the end of ‘The Art of Living’, the new album from Sareem Poems and Newselph. This was a very difficult album to get through.
What made it tough was the excellence of each track. Replay was irresistible. It was the preferred fault of Poems’ bar-setting rhymes paired with Newselph’s top-shelf production. Each song got the over-and-over treatment.
For 4 consecutive exceptional albums – ‘A Pond Apart’ (with Terem), ‘Mind Over Matter’ (with Ess Be), ’88 to Now’, and now ‘Living’ – Poems has proven himself to be one of the very best MCs in hip-hop. On opening track “Mourning The Morning”, which I seriously played about 20 times before moving on to “We The People”, Poems rhymes, “Keep it classic, I ain’t got time for the ratchet / Witchcraft or magic, I ain’t falling for tricks; I stay hip, and get the spot hopping like rabbits”. Tricks aka Trix…rabbit…hip-hop. That boy’s good!
“People” opens with the commotion of a crowd of people. As the sound of their mass chatter lessens, Newselph’s jazzy track reaches full boom-bap as Poems enters the assemblage flexing, “Straight out the den, wearing lions’ skin; conquering the concrete jungle, my pride wins / Rising with the fall, we all have sinned; you holding the stone without… Cast it then / Paper thin, light as a feather; words hold no weight when they are not measured”.
‘The Art of Living’ is another masterful mix of thought-provoking lyrics and thumping beats. From start to finish Poems delivers these superb rhymes with the same crisp snap as Newselph’s drums, and both artists strike resonating chords throughout each of the album’s 11 excellent tracks.
The train of thought rolls deliberately on “Lord Willing”, “Tomorrow Today”, and the grounded title track, carrying heavy subjects that arch our backs. ‘The Art of Living’ is not to bend and be broken, but to straighten our narrows throughout life’s journey. |THIS.
[By Mr. Joe Walker]
