In an era of producers being vital to the hip-hop music formula, few can touch the innovation that Apollo Brown brings to the table as a Mello Music Group representative. His latest project, and sole vocal accompaniment with Roc Marciano further this point.
This time Brown digs into a unique conceptualization with the album Thirty Eight, giving a soul to an unspoken sonic narrative reflective of late 70s and early 80s paramount artists that has been well sampled in hip-hop since it was the present. The vinyl cracks are there to prove it, and the rawness that selective sampling from pure instruments is what makes Brown’s soundtracks a story told in their own right. The multi-genre representation provided by Brown on Eight ends with him and Roc Marciano tag teaming “Lonely & Cold.” The New York emcee lays down a stream of thought that result in vivid bars both brutal and beautiful at once. We should get the second in a pair of tracks from the two artists in the near future.