Showbiz — A Room Therapy

27 years after the "Soul Clap EP" released together with A.G., Showbiz finds himself releasing his first solo album in career. The cover reflects the record: minimal, dark, solid in its consolidated simplicity.

Anticipated by an extended play of the same name released by DITC Studios two months before, with the same cover and the same songs, the project is pressed in vinyl in limited edition to 500 copies (350 on black vinyl, the remaining ones in red) and later also printed on CD. Released by DITC Studios and Slice-of-Spice, the disk is produced by Showbiz, Motif Alumni and Dark Keys. The guests are AG, A Bless, David Bars, Tashane, and Majestic Gage. O.C. is present in both the bonus tracks inserted in the CD version.

The first track is made up of an amazing, dark, dystopian, almost silenthillian, noir boom bap, it's a nice soundscape provided by Show, David Bars drops a couple of atomic lines in this high-profile cut. "Burn Something" presents A Bless and Tashane on an hasty and dark rhythm: A Bless finds himself in a role that would have been perfect for Party Arty, he'd killed the track.

David Bars relives the story of Kalief Browder on a splendid light rhythm, A Bless (undertone) and AG (decent) distribute "The Company" on a bouncy musical painting. "Bronx Day" is another half-masterpiece: excellent essential production, with pretty nice loop soul and a tribute to "C.R.E.A.M." in a production that shouts Pete Rock everywhere. "City of the Gods" is another great old school song from Show & AG with a well-made soulful production.

After the alternative instrumental "Speak Ya Mind" (already present, with other tracks, in the eponymous EP of last year), Andre the Giant returns for "I'm a Ride", a good light tune where he delivers inspired; a soulful interlude follows. Second instrumental, where the soundscape gets heavier ("Put You Down"), then Majestic Gage finds himself dropping bars on an alienating and annoying soundscape provided by Dark Keys: the beatmaker does better in the next track, still with Majestic Gage, together with A Bless and Tashane, creating a beautiful soulful boom bap with a tribute to Big L in the final moments, but whose light-hearted lines of A Bless clash with the theme of the project.

"Love Never Dies" has an excellent rhythm of Motif Alumni, a light boom bap with an illmaticly flavor, a good cut with David Bars who exalts himself in the first bonus track, "The Science", a light production invented by Motif Alumni on which Omar Credle is shown. O.C. remains to close the first solo album of Show in "Recovery", a good heavy boom bap, the last production of Motif Alumni.

Compared to what was heard on the EP, for some reason the piece that, in my humble opinion, was the best of the five, "Dead Man Walking", was excluded for this effort, remaining an exclusive for the digital EP published in 2017. It stands out clearly: splendid boom bap essential, light, tight with piano loop, successful synth and some drums, Omar Credle starts immediately strong and delivers a conscious-political verse with a fast and velvet flow, dope. Short, deep, sharp track.

By extending the EP of the year before, Show pulls out a good East Coast boom bap album that brings the genre back to its roots, the artist seems to have fully rediscovered here. Well David Bars, well O.C. in the final part of the record.

Rating: 7.3/10.