Hip Hop that ain't emo, just honest.

18 MP3 Songs
HIP HOP/RAP: Alternative Hip Hop, URBAN/R&B: Soul



Details:
Dusty Pickup is the second full-length CD from North Providence-bred rapper, Symmetry. The 18-track album is the latest release from Poorly Drawn People, the Rhode Island-based hip hop label also home to Storm Davis and Reason.


Produced entirely by label mate dox, Dusty Pickup represents a more personal, mature effort from Symmetry, who jump started his career with 2005's Cat Drop Complex. Shunning the clichés that have become staples of hip hop music, Symmetry tackles concepts including failed love, a friend's drug addiction and his own mortality.


Key tracks include "Our Land," a song that walks a line between tribute to his father and an indictment of overzealous cops, and "Idiosyncratic," an up-tempo floor shaker that deals with the duality of an artist juggling a rising music career and a "button down" nine-to-five. Songs including "Angel Eyes" and "I Need You" talk about the women that got away, while "Oh Dear," "Lying Down" and "Bye Bye" talk about the one that he has but can't truly tame.


Built around a wide array of samples, the album is aesthetically based in mid-90s hip hop production without falling to the boredom that comes with most "throw back" rap music. The combination of rock, soul and jazz sounds is the craftsmanship of dox, the producer who most recently worked on Reason's Gemini Slang and produced tracks for Storm Davis's Kegstand Poetry for the Recovering Alcoholic. While the album is primarily based off of the dusty sounds of old vinyl, bass player Vinny Lucciola from Marion Cobretti and guitarist Nick Sollecito from Of the Hour make appearances on "Back There" and the closing guitar solo on "Idiosyncratic," respectively.