Rush released because Angel Haze got sick of waiting for Island to release Dirty Gold after it was put back to March 2014 and the Detroit poet turned rapper lost patience with the endless delays, she leaked it herself with a “I don’t give a fuck about marketability, I don’t give a fuck about going platinum, I just want to fucking help, man.”
Perhaps, but her debut album, following the excellent New York EP from 2012, is a big label pop move with production from (according to the Guardian) Coldplay collaborator Markus Dravs and writing credits for Sia Furler, and so it seems a little self serving not to care about sales.
Lucky for Angel this is a good album with two superb songs, “Black Synagogue” and “A Tribe Called Red”. “A Tribe Called Red” includes native American drums as Angel denies who Native American Heritage, a superb rap makes for an extremely riginal rap song. I have yet to hear Native Americans used in rap, indeed in rock, and given current musics accent on rythm it is very strange, right? This is an excellent piece of proto-propaganda.
“Black Synagogue” is a little obvious (though not if you’re 21 years old) but no less wise for that, a search for God that finds Angel circling and then returning to the inside where she spits her rap before a lovely chorus. A very strong song to start the New Year.
That’s the heart of the matter, well, except for set closer ” New York”, and some of the second string, “Angels & Airwaves” is a great beat ruined by the chorus, “Deep Sea Diver” is a beauty, and the Sia song “Black Dahlia” is a potential hit if she hasn’t pissed off Island too much, with a chorus that echoes “Titanium”. “Planes Fly” is a potential huge song, I don’t wonder Island wanted to hold this album till the Spring, it is very very poppy, so many of these songs could hit.
I was expecting something way out there, but for all her poetics and rage against the terrible childhood: this is mainstream hip hop and a little better with a good rapper and singer and a sometimes excellent lyricist.
Grade: B+
