P.A.T. Louisiana’s Finest, and KXNG Crooked join forces on the track “Soul 4 Real” produced by @LosMusick. Hip-hop is a genre that thrives on freshness and the shock of the new. The crew here, deliberately throw a spanner in the works of the current industry standards and formulas. They blend thumping old school 808s and futuristic synths, and along the way, they inadvertently tap into something people really missed. Here they find a creative wellspring, as P.A.T. and KXNG Crooked operate at different but compatible wavelengths, packaging serrated consciousness into prismatic rhymes. When they’re not reaching for universal truths, they’re excavating anthemic motifs. There isn’t a bad verse on the track, because these dudes are too focused and consistent to slip up.
They’re drawing on a cross-generational kinship seeking answers in the process. They’re setting a fantastic example of how two people should come together to grow as artists and all we can do hope the new wave of rappers follows suit.
They represent two separate American perspectives from two artists who’ve been speaking out for what they believe in on record, and they work side by side seamlessly. This track is a complete winner from beginning to end. It’s a kind of a gravitational force for everything that’s good in real hip-hop.
The stakes are clearly raised and various cultures seep in everywhere but at the end of the day all the protest and howling mean nothing if the music and rhymes don’t work; thank god they sure as hell work on “Soul 4 Real”.
It bangs out hard and fast with dance power and ferocious stanzas, reminiscent of the golden era. The record manages to alternately sound futuristic and old school, sometimes from stanza to stanza. The constant experimentation and tonal shifts would be head spinning if they weren’t expertly stitched together, and has the vocals and lyrics acting as a poetic glue.
Everything on “Soul 4 Real” just feels important and vital. P.A.T. and KXNG Crooked are clearly having fun and are perfectly matched as they ride a creative high having put out this authentic new-age boom-bap track.
“Soul 4 Real” gets the blood pumping from the opening bars which are a reminder of just exactly what the listener is dealing with here. P.A.T. Louisiana’s Finest’s unique delivery instantly causes the listener to sit up and take notice, as the countless quotable bars that span the record, constantly prove him a master of swaggering wordplay.
There’s an open-hearted camaraderie between the two emcees, as P.A.T. Louisiana’s Finest and KXNG Crooked seem poised to attack less respectable rappers within the culture. Their invective is absolute, their vision unyielding. The production is on point, the lyricism is of top notch quality and the back-and-forth between P.A.T. and KXNG Crooked is flawless.
From a mix perspective it’s clean and easy to listen to. Everything that needs to be heard is heard, and the entire project is stellar – pure, unadulterated hip hop the way it was originally meant to be. “Soul 4 Real” is the most exhilarating three minutes of underground rap music I’ve experienced since the nineties!
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