TheSoulfulPoet Releases His Album ‘Live From The Basement’
Even though poetry can be the root of lyrical combat in Hip-Hop, the transition from spoken word to flowing on a track is never simple. With his latest album ‘Live From The Basement’, TheSoulfulPoet delivered his first Hip-Hop album.
The upcoming artist was impressive in adapting to different atmosphere, the quality of sound was clean from the beats dropped to the vocals. This project was produced by Quest, who never fails to deliver a fine tuned project. The 11 track project hosts only one feature in Dominique Gorley. I’m always impressed to see upcoming artists not flood their projects with features, but because it was delivered live it could have been special to hear more collaborative performances.
‘Give Me A Second’ kicks off this album, it is a very good introduction to the project. It highlights how he can use his sound to be aggressive in delivering his flow. ‘Motivated’ caught me off guard, with a very uptempo sounding beat I couldn’t help but anticipate Rick Ross hit us with that “Yugh”. I was left impressed to see how well Soulful adapted to the different sounds thrown his way.
‘Mama Interlude’ was very humbling where you hear his mother deliver a warm message to Ali (TheSoulfulPoet). The message is carried out in Arabic and English, showing the two worlds he frequently mentions throughout his music. ‘Views Freestyle’ was a stand out track because it holds a sense of nostalgia where many Hip-Hop projects used to hold 1 or 2 freestyles within the catalog. As a spoken word artist Ali really held his own with the freestyle, I feel like his knowledge of poetry helped him excel on that aspect of the album. However the part I thought he shined brightest was on the track ‘Quarantine’, where he goes into a different mode reciting poetry at the 1:25 mark.
As far as content goes, this project has something for every scenario. From beginning to end the album carries weight whether you want uptempo track or self reflective tracks to zone out to. The story telling is there and TheSoulfulPoet has an insanely unique voice, not as a raspy as Jada and packs some bass. Once he discovers a new range and grows as an artist, there is no telling how far his music can go.
