High Life kicks off with a dark and dramatic musical back drop, the main riff is repeated in a sort of hypnotic manner, the vocals have a lot of attitude but in a very laid back kind of way – quite effectively highlighting the whole idea of the high life, though the lyrics trail off in a few different directions from what I could catch. Always good to hear an artist playing around with words and meanings and the whole idea of the double entendre.
https://soundcloud.com/keemo-richardson/high-life-prod-j-rashad-1-mp3
Musically the song has a lot of links with some of the big hip hop releases from the 2000’s, a bit of a Soulja Boy vibe. None of the lyrics stood out any great deal apart from ‘We turn up every day’, as the song fades out towards the end. That spoken section had the most memorable effect of the whole track, apart from this it was a little difficult to differentiate between the verses and the hook, but this kind of rap music often revels in this hypnotic vibe that is created as the music spins out. The beat and the bass line are big enough to hold it all up.
A slightly different musical riff for behind the hook, or a little bit more going on behind the vocal, more voices, harmonies, a new sound or effect or something, might have made a difference, might have added that dynamic that makes you really look forward to the main part, but having said that the track does work well in the fact that it’s just doing it’s own thing. As the song plays out you get a sense of the artist, the kind of music that inspired this, the kind of sound they were going for, and you definitely realise that it’s that sort of drive along theme tune that plays round and round and gets you nodding your head.
By Rebecca Cullen
