Raw Poetic’s Space Beyond the Solar System suggests a lost ’70s Afrofuturist sci-fi movie score as composed by Alice Coltrane. On “Houdini’s Spell,” the Virginia-based MC quips, “If music is a drug, well fuck it, I’m using.” Indeed, he uses almost everything possible throughout the album: jazz (Archie Shepp, Raw Poetic’s uncle, plays saxophone on three songs), psychedelia, prog-rock, even classical music. And the maximalism extends to the album’s length, which clocks in at two hours and 17 tracks, including the 23-minute finale “Antidote Island.”
In many ways, Raw Poetic’s sound is a throwback to both conscious rap and more overtly jazz-influenced hip-hop. Rather than merely sampling electric pianos and breakbeats from Blue Note records, though, collaborator Damu the Fudgemunk’s production seamlessly mixes its samples with live instrumentation. And while Raw Poetic quotes ’80s-era hip-hop acts like Run-DMC and Public Enemy, the album’s sonic vocabulary is cinematic and rhythmically sophisticated, with frequent beat switches and synth sounds lifted from the ’70s.
Damu excels at writing catchy keyboard riffs, concentrating on texture by layering other sounds on top, as on “Digits.” The effect is enormous throughout Space Beyond the Solar System, especially on “Freak,” which combines strings, harp, choral vocals, and a thundering beat to dazzling effect. The album is full of glistening details whose origins can be difficult to pin down, as they’re deliberately muddied through filters and dynamic changes in volume.
For all its excess, Space Beyond the Solar System isn’t devoid of hooks, but it takes repeated listens for them to sink in. Raw Poetic’s lyrics remain grounded, with stinging bars like “Does the Ku Klux Klan own Church’s Chicken?/Goddamn, they got some kick-ass chicken and heart conditions.” And while his flow proves malleable—with a singsong delivery here, a syncopated one there—over constantly changing backdrops, he risks getting lost on his own album, especially during some of its longer instrumental passages. But that’s a minor quibble on an album with a vision this ambitious and singularly expansive.
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amazing review