The Anderson .Paak EP
The most soothing, soulful R&B jams of 2015 so far have been brought to you by … Blended Babies? Bearing a name that sounds more like a Slipknot song or Saw plot twist, the production duo from Chicago partnered with singer Anderson .Paak for their Sept. 25 release The Anderson .Paak EP.
Featuring four tracks and a runtime just shy of 13 minutes, the project establishes itself as a quintessential windows-down, open-road soundtrack with its lead song, “So Slow.” Anderson .Paak, formerly known as Breezy Lovejoy and heavily featured on Dr. Dre’s latest album, Compton, croons an echoe-y introduction, “My old Chevy movin’ so slow / but my mind still spinning off of coco.” Cleveland-based rapper King Chip effortlessly rides the beat while detailing standard-fare rapper escapades that occur as he drives around in various Chevy vehicles. It’s a track that begs to be played in summertime, invoking beach-breeze nostalgia on a gloomy Maryland Saturday.
Next is “Make It Work,” in which Paak’s sensual tone lets his lover know “I wanna make it work / I wanna make it good if it kills me.” He sounds like what Prince attempted to pull off on his 2014 album, Art Official Age, or maybe more like the Jackson 5 tackling the subject matter of a twenty-something (which is one of the strangest compliments I’ve ever given). Asher Roth, whose 2014 album RetroHash was solely produced by Blended Babies, delivers the “how to flow” rap that Roth fans have come to love and crave: “So f— the phone, I cross the ocean in a boat / I have to row cause flowing’s too slow / and both motors are broken / and the sky opens up and I don’t have a raincoat.”
It’s raps like these from Roth that are what the artist deserves to be known for, despite frustratingly being remembered for his frat-rap single “I Love College.”
On “Drifter II,” Paak poetically paints a portrait of the life of a vagabond: “Baby, your drifter is all I can be / But you don’t stop me from floating upstream.” Born in 1986, Paak has had a career chock-full of drifting, being widely unknown until breaking through with his multiple appearances on Compton. In an interview with Yohance Kyles of allhiphop.com, this pre-Compton period of Paak’s life included a time in which he was homeless, living in complete poverty while trying to support his wife and newborn son.
These types of tribulations explain why Paak’s sound is so raw and honest, and that style finds its peak on the EP’s final track, “Cheap Whiskey 70’s Riesling,” an ode to his father (who’s assumed dead or estranged before Paak ever had a chance of knowing him). After the beat switches up around the one minute, 40 second mark, Paak resumes his singing with a reverb-aided lament: “If poppa could see me, we’d probably share a toast over ’70s Rieslings / I’m trying to get a hold of these demons; it ain’t easy.”
The lyrics seem like something out of the darker discography of Johnny Cash or from the type of song one would perform at a dilapidated bar with sawdust on the floor featured in a film like Inside Llewyn Davis. However, Paak’s ability to channel that sort of songwriting into today’s popular genres is what makes him stand out, fusing classic soul and blues with aux cord-worthy instrumentals.
The Anderson .Paak EP isn’t a classic, but thanks to glossy, melodic Blended Babies production, it plants Anderson .Paak alongside the names of Frank Ocean, Miguel and current R&B go-to features. Do yourself a favor and pour a glass of your finest cheap whiskey and let Blended Babies and Anderson .Paak provide the soundtrack for 12 and a half minutes of your life.
