In a landscape overrun with abstract indulgence and shallow trend-chasers, the Prince George’s County, Maryland artist has created a record that reminds you that it’s music before it’s hip-hop.įor Oddisee, “The Good Fight” is about living fully as a musician without succumbing to the traps of hedonism, avarice, and materialism. This is the Odd Tape, life as you’ve never heard it before.Imbued with love, honesty, and selflessness, The Good Fight is virtuosic in its musicality, direct in its language, and infinitely relatable. It glides, meditates, and simmers from “Alarmed” to “Still Sleeping.” The soundtrack to his coffee in the morning, a trip to the corner store for fresh groceries, producing in the afternoon, cruising his bike through the city for inspiration, late afternoon song writing, stepping out into the evening with friends, hookah on the rooftop in Brooklyn, and settling into the dream world again. He’s always created on his own terms, but feels like a hearty "fuck you" to prevailing groupthink and the industry’s creative limitations.”īut this record marks another ascension. You can hear older gods like Roy Ayers, Bob James, and Fela, but mostly you hear Oddisee continue to come into his own.Īs Pitchfork described his previous album, 2015’s The Good Fight: “the music feels distinctly international and unhindered, far removed from the straight-ahead boom-bap he used to make. Oddisee went from sampling to creating the eternal sounds of his original inspirations. It starts in the morning with “Alarmed,” that sounds like if Shuggie Otis did a psychedelic eye-opening cover of Nas’ “Shootouts.” It rolls through “Right Side of the Bed,” with its glitter-gold sax lines, loose drums, and sunshine-slanting-through-the-blinds keyboards. The Odd Tape revolves around the rhythms of the artist’s daily life. The Odd Tape showcases the range of a composer bending hip-hop, soul, and jazz into singular form, tapping into that same emotional Fort Knox that animates all wordless choruses. The Odd Tape is technically the former-there are no vocals-but if you call this an instrumental album, you might as well say the same about Bitches Brew.Īfter a decade making music, the Prince Georges, Md.-raised and Brooklyn-based has transcended influences, comparisons and genre. But don’t mistake the Odd Tape for the noise of birds chirping, idle chatter, or car alarms it’s that internal soul-jazz reverberating at the back of your brain.įor the last decade, the Mello Music Group artist has alternated between instrumental albums, full-length rap records, and his role as one-third of Diamond District. Both a rapper chronicling the perils and joys of ordinary existence, and a virtuosic producer attuned to the vibrations of how life actually sounds. Oddisee is an everyman with extraordinary talent.
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March 2023
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