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Here’s a cynical read of the album that might smell a little like a conspiracy theory, but what if Raury isn’t the next Nas? What if all the talk of reclaiming dignity and being positive role models is part of a tactic used by the Music Industrial Complex to create the image of an acceptable rap star that can be easily marketed on several levels? “He’s political but he’s a lover with deep feelings, too,” and so on.
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He has a song about going different ways with a friend, a song about how he loves his mom, a song about a special girl, etc. This is fitting, because while half of the album is socially responsible rap for kids to look up to, blah blah blah, the rest of it is romantic music, in the generalized sense. It’s like he took all the angst and trepidation of being young and politically conscious, and expressed it as if it were Opposite Day at the recording studio. Raury is not Rage Against the Machine, and his style is closer to Jack Johnson than KRS-One – sorry, dated references. Guessing that Raury’s influences are based off what his parents might have listened to when he was 10. All We Need is–mostly–a political album. Its ethos is social consciousness. It describes the current state of a nation, specifically that of the African-American millennial, and it outlines the general steps that need to be taken in order to course-correct the history that’s being made right now. It’s an album that summarizes a history of aggression, mistakes, and wasted potential.
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Raury, and his debut album All We Need, represents the youth, the future, and now.Ĭonversations about “aboutness” can become tedious without much effort, so to keep it short, All We Need is about coming of age and accepting responsibility, as well as pointing out the shared responsibilities we, as a society, need to acknowledge. The youth are becoming more politically and socially minded in ways society hasn’t seen in decades. Check out Woodcrest Manor II for a taste of where this music is going.These are times when dramatic shifts in technologies and economies are causing popular uprisings throughout our universal culture. If you ask me, rappers like him are the future of this genre. But he’s really more like Common: he’s coming in with a unique perspective on the sound and the scene, and he’s rapping about things that are a little counter-cultural to the hip hop scene. When Raury gets popular - if he’s not there already - I think there will be people who compare his production skills to Kanye West, thanks to his unique ability to surprise and entertain with what sounds like obvious connections between un-obvious sounds. It’s truly stunning, and revealing of an emotional capacity well beyond his own years. He pairs slamming an ex-girlfriend with a vocal background soothingly singing “I miss you” on repeat in a choral arrangement. The best of the bunch, from a songwriting perspective, is Love Is Not A Four Letter Word. It’s like Fleet Foxes or Boy & Bear adding hip hop to their repertoire, and it works way better than you’d imagine.
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Beats and acoustic guitars intermingle, people sing in a chorus arrangement, and then Raury begins rapping. His album has been described as a merger of folk and hip hop, and while I’m not sure that’s the best description, it might be as close as you can get. He’s a great singer, songwriter, and rapper. The 19-year-old really is somebody special, with a keen understanding of both his genre and his abilities. And I’m not sure why that is, because Raury has one of the freshest voices in hip hop I’ve heard for a while. It took me two listens a couple weeks apart to really get Raury’s All We Need.