Lord Of The Rap

posted in: Artist Features

It wouldn’t be fair to describe Lyrical as just a rapper. He’s more of a hip hop laureate”a scholar of the genre, who incidentally also has degrees in business and mathematics. Looking at the subject matter in his songs, you’ll find an equally diverse syllabus. Gimme Your Love is ˜70s R&B with rippling symphonic textures over which Lyrical lays his mellow flow. We gonna party like it’s ’99, make these doves cry, he spits. At the next track he takes it from Y2K back to medieval times. Renaissance mixes tales of yore”from Sir Lancelot and King Arthur to Lewis and Clark and Charles Darwin. Sorrowful chamber music and Gregorian chants keep the mood austere, while Lyrical dances around the beat like a verbal swordsman. Listen to Dark Acapella and you’ll hear unchained thought, stripped of everything except Lyrical’s voice. It’s provocative stuff from a diehard academic. If you’re not careful, you might learn something.