Hus Kingpin — Portishus

Hus Kingpin decides to pay homage to the Bristol trip-hop group Portishead, with an album of about 60 minutes and 20 overall tunes, often sampling the songs present in the discography of the Beth Gibbons group, also honored within the project.

The Brooklyn native MC reserves ten consecutive solo minutes in the first few tracks, then gathers a large number of guests, including: Vinnie Paz, Roc 'C', Big Twins, The Musalini, Ransom, Willie the Kid, Ty Farris, SmooVth, Nems and Snotty. Composed of a wonderful jazzy production, with perfect midtempo drums and wonderful samples, and a lyricism that focuses on battle rap, braggadocio, violence, drugs, sex and trip-hop, the record sounds like one of the best and most inspired projects in the Hus Kingpin career. He's blessed with a sublime production, but he fails to complete it with a lyricism at the qualitative height of the rhythms: his raw and graphic bars, keep the atmosphere of the disc dark and dirty, nevertheless, while performed with a velvet, slow and flowing rapping style, their lowering makes this effort less regular and captivating than expected.

Among the best external performers, the following stand out: Black Widow in "Belly", with a slow, hard and hardcore delivery; Vinnie Paz in the next posse, where he destroys the cut with a raw, dirty, energetic and brutal delivery; Ransom and Willie the Kid on a rhythm with an eclectic piano and ethereal vibes; SmooVth and Nems with a tight style on a experimental rhythm; Snotty with a short freestyle in the final track. From the point of view of production, the highlights are practically unlimited. In particular, the first five tracks are excellent, with beautiful dirty and dusty midtempo drums and brilliant samples, one better than the other, culminating in "The Struggling": Hus Kingpin delivers with a dope style together with El Ay on a perfect carpet, simple boom bap left to breathe, perfect drum, soulful female choir in the background and entrancing sample from Jay-Z's "D'Evils", which maintains a mood similar to that of Portishead discs.

It's hard not to recommend it to East Coast boom bap fans, because the music deserves at least a couple of spins, if you ignore the lyrics it's a good tape. 7/10.