When we first heard “cloud hip hop” well over a year ago it seemed a logical place for urban poets to flow on.



We were, after all, officially “over” the dated party beats of the likes of Ja Rule and had welcomed the idea of emotional hip hop through the door marked ‘Kanye West - 808’s and Hearbreak’. Was the “world’s greatest rapper” (Read: the only one who was still interesting to indie kids) “gay”? Who knew and who cared, but he certainly had some soul going on inside the world of Hos and Honeys, even if it took auto-tune to give him a voice that expressed it.

 

In this wake, it seemed logical small steps to Lil B’s 'I’m God’, to the 'Perfect Skies’ of Main Attractionz and to pretty much everything on the two amazing instrumentals mixtapes dropped by producer and imaginator Clams Casino. And suddenly the creator of the extremely odd 'Purple Swags’ was signing to a major label for more bills than he had skills.



But frankly, it did actually made sense that hip hop would take its obsession with smoking cheeba and bring a set of beats to their rhymes that would capture the stoner sound  in your head as they chatted. And lo, there was suddenly A$AP Rocky to do just that and re-harness that good RZA flava for 2012.

 

So it was surprise in 2012 and a look forward into 2013 when the cloudbeats actually became the engine that powered a new kind of R&B, and that turned out to have the energy and not the hip hoppers.



I have waxed lyrical before about the beauty of Solange Knowles new direction and its soulful funkiness. At the time it was maybe as much for the elegant “so styling” video as for the tune itself but “Losing You” grows and grows as tune of the year, based on the slinkiness of Dev Hines production.

 

Hines (otherwise known as Lightspeed Champion) draws heavily on a warped version of 90s american soul that puts Prince back in the place he should be revered for - an amazing and innovative production head - as well as reflecting on the way indie scensters like the XX and Polica used old RnB beats rudimentally reproduced and strapped to a smashing sub-bass to lighten up their indie vocals. Dev is a producer-de-jour and he’s even made the much hyped Sky Ferreira sound pretty good (check out their joint “Everything is Embarassing” for the acceptable face of the new AOR that Emily Sande peddles so shockingly).



Its fair to say that before this I had thought that Cooly G’s take on trip hop type beats (“ ….” On uber cool uk label Hyperdub)  was the way nu soul would go forward until I heard first Blood Orange (took me a while to get into but you really should starting with S'cooled) and then Dev’s Solange stuff. And then it came to me that good though Cooly is (and good though the other contender Jessie Ware isn’t) their sound wasn’t fresh in the way Solange’s so much is.



And I think its fair to say that there is no Dev without the Weeknd and their knowing Beach House samples. I feel personally that the eventual release of their Trilogy album (combining the 3 mix tapes) seemed somewhere less exciting than downloading House of Balloons back then but this was as much a case of “less is more” (I didnt need 3 albums of demos to reinforce the repetitious glacial cocaine fueled paranoia) as the fact that people had jumped their sound already (stand up brilliant and utterly glacial Drake and Rhianna single “Take Care”).

 

Whatever this was the jumping off point for “cloud” becoming the base of new RnB, not hip hop, and fast on the train was the album everyone loved to like - Frank Ocean’s 'Channel Orange’. Now the idea of RnB without hits is pretty mind-altering to those of us who were bought up on 1 track RnB import albums as proof positive of the ultimate hit based format - but Ocean redefined “your new tune as the freshest” to mean sonicly rather than by radio play. In that way he’s more like a “rock innovator” - maybe for amusement let’s call it Progressive Soul, a good name for an album of 10 minute soundscapes linking Ancient Egypt to Atlanta strip clubs. Its still so achingly cool that again it seems churlish to suggest that the original mixtape was better but whilst I love 'Pyramids’ I do still jump all over 'American Wedding’ with its (presumably unclearable Hotel California sample) if I get the chance. Call it one upmanship if you want… I suspect we will get to be unable to walk into a bar without hearing Channel Orange for the next 10 years so we might as well accept that it’s good and that’s that. I hope it stands up to the battering as well as Massive Attack.

 

But given that everyone had already tipped the shit out of Ocean, it did in fact come as a surprise to me that the best of all the woozy hip soul albums was from someone else and pretty unheralded. By which I mean it came out and hardly anyone seemed to talk about it. Even though it banged. So let’s talk about it ..



Friends, give a big shout out to Miguel’s 'Kaleidoscope Dream’ - if you like Ocean you can love this more. I don’t know anything about Miguel and I think it may be his second record in fact rather than his “oh look at me” third mix tape - but this record really is soulful and it’s hot. He produced it himself apparently and it has a tangy edge of psychedelic right in there with a soul vocal and some stonerish beats and some pure pimpin’ old skool RnB filth ('Pussy is Mine’) and it pretty much rocks it even if it is a tad long (weed and the edit button don’t seem to mix well actually and obviously!). I think it pretty much is a straight up fact that Miguel sings the best of all the nu-skoolers, and so its easier to see this record as pure soul tradition. This one has songs! Real ones! So  if you are sick of people who don’t even live in cool suburbs asking you “hey bro, have you heard about Frank Ocean?” then treat yourself  to this one and it’ll be a secret between us for a minute or two.

 

And that was that. Not quite. In the middle came Kendrick Lamar and the hyped “Good Kid .. MAAD city” thingy. I’m going to put a word on this and say that although its billed hip hop it’s really a cloud soul album. I haven’t lived it for long enough but really it feels pretty good and though he mainly rhymes it feels like it fits with the records and music above and not quite so much in team hip hop. Something about the sound of his voice as he wraps it around the beats. I like this record more than I thought I would and it sounds modern and beautiful and RnB and you can spin it right between Weeknd and XX and it sounds ….right. So I’m calling this as the 3rd part of the wonky soul trilogy and a righteous inheritor of the awesome D'Angelo mantle (the king of offbeat stoner soul - check this video and song out 'Untitled (how does it feel)’ from back then and treat your bad self to some true soul) even if some people call him the new face of hip hop.

 

And don’t despair. Actual hip hop (away from the hip pop of Azaleia Banks and the less hip-pop of Flo Rida, Wayne and co) actually chugged along pretty nicely too. Maybe 2013 will be the year when the records by A$AP Rocky, Joey Bada$$, Mac Miller, Danny Brown and all will bring cloud hop up and (staggering in a “stoned-is-the-way-I-roll” pimp walk) into the chart and we won’t have to wait (yet) again for the non-delivery of The Chronic version 2013 with unbated breath. And maybe these guys will rally and recognise how their god should be Tricky and how he deserves all their respect. I don’t think Macklemore is in this vibe really but his sense of humour opens a(nother) door. Who knows - maybe Oddience will actually re-usher the daisy age back in nu-skool style for an audience who’d love its righteous and positive vibes. It feels like we might all be ready for that when the sun comes out.

 

And as a final note turns out the worlds “best nu soul star” (copyright every magazine) could have been “gay” too. Or maybe not. Who cares? This was interesting music and who cared what he was or wasn’t.

-TH

Essential listening

D'Angelo “Voodoo” (virgin)



Madhouse “both albums” (paisley park)



Tricky “maxinaquaye” (island)



Shabazz Palaces “Black Up ” (sub pop)



Blood Orange (domino)



Solange Knowles “losing you” (terrible)



The Weeknd “Trilogy” (interscope)



Drake “take care ” (universal single)



Frank Ocean. (Mixtape on the www)



Miguel “Kaleidoscope Dreams” (Sony)



ASAP Rocky “Purple Swags”



Clams Casino “instrumentals” (mixtapes on www)



Oddience (Oddience soundcloud)



Kendrick Lamarr “good kid MAAD city” (universal)