Every so often you’ll come across an artist who, based on their reputation, and previous projects. You don’t question whether or not it’s worth your time to listen.

Think Andre 3000.* (Or Common’s*, Electric Circus, two decades before)…His genius and passion permeate any and every project he’s been involved with. A select few can understand the genius behind the beats and rhymes that make it easier to exist in this broken, beautiful world. Hence the tepid reaction to his most recent release, New Blue Sun…

It’s my favorite 3000 record to date: It’s unlike anything he’s done before, and well, that’s the point. He wants us to know that’s he’s more than what you thought you knew. It’s breathtakingly, hauntingly honest. It’s an authentic testimonial of love…and evolution. That’s just my humble opinion.

True creatives, which musicians, writers, artists, etcetera, know how to turn pain into pleasure; they take what others deem ugly, mundane, or irrelevant and make it beautiful; they give their subjects life. Artists are gifted with perspective.

Perspective, is just as important as canvas, paint, words, pen, paper, chord arrangements, mesmerizing beats and prolific rhymes. When you are moved by a great work, it’s intuitive. It’s personal. You know why it moves you.

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Enter Wych Hazle and Kiza G Beats.

“It All Started With A Party”

-Wych Hazle, Dramafication 2

Dramafication was the origin story.

Dramafication 2, is the hero’s mission. Just like the Prologue to the album suggests: Hazle and Kiza G go in! Hazle doesn’t waste time with semantics, Kiza G’s beats phenomenal beats transport and transcend; whether it’s taking you to your happy place, as he did for me, with the album’s Prologue: G laid back 70’s style, horn-infused beats reminiscent of the Motown tunes permeating my apartment on weekends, while I boogied and shimmied from room to room, doing your chores, or whatever. Then of course, in the late 80’s rap came into my life, fusing the Motown songs I heard as a child into the songs I was now rapping and dancing to. Damn right, all of this started with a party.

Dramafication 2 brings me back to the party.

It was all so simple then…good times and good vibes, despite the war going on outside. And this is where our hero shines, weaving beats, rhymes and metaphor into the finest tapestry imaginable. Mythology, theology, geology, genealogy: he has a prolific understanding of the world and how it works. Dramafication is the classroom; professor Hazle knows where he’s going and where he wants to take us. 

On tracks like Fight for Your Mind, which highlight the issues still plaguing poor, black and brown folk, not only in America, but across the world: mass shootings, racial profiling, inadequate housing, segregation and gentrification, economic inequality, you wonder whether to pump your fist, or shake your hips. In this case, you’ll want to do both.

In an industry (and genre) rife with chauvinism, sexism and misogyny, Spread Your Wings, celebrates brilliant, resilient-selfless-women: mothers, sisters and daughters who have nurtured, encouraged, provided for, and protected husbands, brothers, sons and fathers from an oppressive system whose intention is to destroy and debilitate-to divide and conquer. He acknowledges that he’s a “blessed man” to be able to rely on the strength of his woman, as much, or maybe even more than she relies on his.

There are songs on the album that you just keep pressing rewind on-even before the song is over, because you just can’t get enough of them. Notable tracks include the prophetic Bear Witness, Trigger Happy and, Get it While You’re Livin’, which, in addition to being one of the dopest songs on the album, is also a call to action! 

Check out Dramafication 2. Now.