Toronto artist Cru3 raps and sings on his latest 8 track project “Non Fiction”. Man, there is something about this artist that I can relate to in his music. You can just feel the emotion bleeding through the tracks on this recording. He makes songs based on what he feels and not just to sell records and reach the masses. He is definitely an artist who wants to carve out his own uniqueness in the business.
With great production at his side and an audibly well thought-out compositional approach, “Non Fiction” is Cru3’s finest recording yet. For the most part in fact, the project’s production is curated with creativity in mind, a sonic bag of treats for those who vibe to gloomy, celestial explorations, as well as chilled atmospheric stylings.
The beats on “Non Fiction” have plenty of meat on them, crafting a sonic mood board that evokes thoughts of vivid street hustling, erotic bedroom healing and lit mind trips. The beats, which are a fitting canvas for the cathartic subject matter Cru3 brings to the table, push the sonic parameters of hip-hop in a way many haven’t done this consistently.
It’s a notable contrast with Cru3 who seems genuinely reinvigorated, coloring dark soundscapes with the peculiar eccentricities of his voice blending in seamlessly. Cru3 is an effective rapper with complicated stories, whose music radiates whatever joy, pain or anger his feeling in the moment.
Right from the opening track, “60/40”, the rappers’ artistic presence is imbued with a noticeable vigor, lyrical presence, and effectiveness – even in the realm of minimalist, brooding raps – that suggest conscience, lucidity, and active, critical thought.
Statements that find balance within soulful arrangements like “2005” and evoke a higher power through prismatic synthesizer chords and the interplay of dynamic percussive sections on “Happy Devil”. Cru3 is a reckless, angry and flamboyant hustler on “Instagram”, who instantly switches to his introspective half, offering an earnest emotional invocation on the title track “Non Fiction”.
The whole record is pitched to Cru3’s emotional range and his explicit rhymes, as he blurs the line between singing and rapping, and there’s an intuitive soulful grace to the way his voice trips across tracks like “Wrinkle”. On “Gloomy” and “Impair” Cru3’s lyrical prowess comes to the fore to match his storytelling nuances and pure vocal flow.
Musically bouncing between ambient minimalism and amped-out maximalism, the sound of this project is focused and refined, captured through a genre-melting swirl of kaleidoscopic excellence. Cru3’s vocal flexibility finds its true artistic accomplice in this music.
Cru3’s constant flitting between raps, and melodic crooning bear their greatest results yet here, not only forming the backbone of the tracks but consistently shifting their dynamics to keep them fresh. Not only does Cru3 come across as endlessly entertaining, but he sounds visceral, focused and clever. His verses float in and out like objects caught in the flow of production. “Non Fiction” an instantly gratifying recording that tells it like it is.
OFFICIAL LINKS: SPOTIFY – APPLE MUSIC – INSTAGRAM
Gayle
Wow – this wrapped up how it feels listening to the tracks.