Adeem

A few years ago I was listening to Adeem describe the sound he was looking for to his GLUE-producer Maker. Basically, he was telling a beat-maker that he wanted a simple tambourine. Imagine the look on his face when he repeated himself a second time.

"You just want a tambourine?" Maker asks with his arms crossed.

"Yeah." Adeem replies.

*CRICKETS*

Adeem wasn't kidding. Nor was he being facetious. He was hinting towards a bare bones attempt at incorporating blues, folk and gospel into a hip hop record. And while that wouldn't work in a indie-rap-powerhouse-trio such as GLUE (Maker and DQ are respectively some of the best in their fields, as is Adeem who can order fast food faster than they can make it), it didn't leave his miniature and adorable little brains.

Here we are in 2011 and Adeem has exactly that in his cute little pocket: a definitive cross pollination between blues, folk, and gospel spiritual in a godforsaken hip hop record. The Volume in the Ground.

I will admit to digging the concept for maybe a song or two, but after the third or fourth different incarnation of this idea put to the test, I can also admit that I was wrong about it not working. Sure, I don't care for every single track on the album, but the ones that knock, fucking KNOCK.

It's deep woods-rap. It's the dusty soul that wasn't made famous with Kanye speeding up samples. It's porch-rap. It's Sunday morning service brought to the ear, but without all of the preachy preacher preaching some people might expect from the morally confident Adeem. It's something I can imagine him performing solo while sitting on a bucket slapping his knee. (I can also hear Sole in here playing his beard hairs like a moonshine'd out version of a jaw harp, but that's only because he likes to jam on that thing and he's overly friendly with overly friendly people.)

If you're as sad as I am about GLUE breaking up for good, well, Maker has an instrumental record coming out with Joey Beats. DQ fell off the face of the planet and still owes me a whisper-hello. And here is Adeem's next move.

It's an honest one. I recommendsies.