Beauty and the Beat

EdanBeauty and the Beat

With his second official album, Beauty and the Beat, Boston’s Edan joins the elite of hip-hop auteurs (Buck65, Blueprint and MF Doom, to name a few) at the upper echelon of current artists working to keep the genre both pure in nature and progressive in spirit. In a dream world where Eliot Spitzer is President and Clear Channel, payola, and MTV don’t exist, Beauty and the Beat could be a direly important, chart-ready throwback to the days of classic hip-hop, no less important than other nostalgic based (and highly promoted) acts such as The Strokes. As Blueprint learned earlier this year with his 1988 album, channeling a time and place you weren’t a part of can be tricky. Edan, however, seems to have no problem with his most recent resounding better days.

Pitched by most critics as “psychedelic” (likely due to the albums artwork and continuous flow, rather than the actual music), Beauty builds each song off of dusty, dance-ready break beats buried under funk and acid loops. Speckled with soul vocal samples and guest-shots from like-minded friends, Beauty plays through as a brief yet dense work by an artist capable of sounding both classic and modern simultaneously.

In addition to his masterful production technique, Edan has done his work studying the vocal handlings of the genres innovators, specifically the stylings of Big Daddy Kane and Kool G Rap. With a somewhat nasally and oddly dynamic voice, Edan’s approach goes back before the days of cliched tactics, when an emcee controlled the beat through pure charisma and flow. Together, Edan combines dirty beats and dusty rhymes over 13 tracks spanning 34 steadfast minutes.

In due time, major hip-hop labels are bound to cash in on the nostalgia game. And while there is little chance they will do it the right way, there’s always the hope that something like Edan’s latest offering will again get some radio play. For now, if you love hip-hop culture, be it breaking, emceeing or otherwise, Beauty and the Beat offers a very authentic glimpse into the cultures overall atmosphere. Beauty’s strength is arguably its flawless execution; to hip-hop connoisseurs, Edan’s latest is a celebration of a lifestyle that very few rap fans really understand.

Music fans, check out www.spitzer2006.com. To those “knee deep in the beats,” don’t combat the urge to file Beauty and the Beat alongside your oldschool favorites. It’s roots wonderfully dusty, Edan is the real deal.   9/10

Written by G. William Locke