Sach O is cool with 90s Timbaland. 00s Timbaland not-so-much.
I regrettably missed Kingdom’s Shambhala set due to a lack of sleep/serotonin but by all accounts he killed it, bringing an urban-chic to a festival usually accustomed to pastoral funk. If it was anything like the previous night’s Girl Unit jam – think the latest, cutting edge sounds delivered on a giant sound system in the middle of the woods with video projected on giant suspended sunflowers in the trees. Not your typical environment for this stuff but a whole lot of fun and t’was nice to see a crowd accustomed to the Stanton Warriors rocking out something a little more 2011.
In any case, Kingdom will be dropping by my hometown once again in October thanks to the homie Rilly Guilty and Lookout productions. It’s a great look, as few if any beatmakers on the eastern seaboard can match Kingdom’s style these days. Combining New York’s rich legacy of House music to the syncopation and R&B leanings of Timbaland’s classic 90s output, he’s one of the few Americans to match the Brits at their own game without coming off as derivative and his tunes always feel like they’re one forward-thinking emcee or singer away from landing on pop radio. His Beyonce-sampling, rhythm-switching Night Slugger “Fogs” is over a year old now and I still regularly find myself dropping it in sets and hearing it played out by dubwise selectors. In an era where yesterday’s leak is tomorrow’s old news, that’s pretty damned impressive.
His newest plate “Take Me” featuring Naomi Allen may be the clearest example of his production aesthetic so far, featuring a proper vocal splitting the difference between TRL-era black pop, a contemporaneous UKG flex and today’s all-bass-everything electronic dance music. It’s important that music producers know that a recognizable production aesthetic is important. The songwriting isn’t anything to write home about but this one’s all about the vibe as Naomi’s airy, light-hearted come-ons float over the kind of start-stop riddim that’s too often eclipsed these days by 4X4 intensity or mechanized dread. Of course, if it’s machine-music you want, you could do worse than B-Side “If You Buck” which sounds like the backing track for the best Missy-Twista duet that never was. Throw in an excellent Floetry refix on the deluxe edition and you’ve got the perfect remedy for today’s overly-tranced, autotuned out, radio-drivel. Someone get Ludacris and Jagged Edge on the phone, stat.
Stream:
Floetry – Say Yes (Kingdom Remix) by kkingdomm
