For the better part of the last decade, Cincinnati’s Napoleon Maddox — co-founder of innovative and experimental Hip Hop/Jazz ensemble IsWhat?!, among other projects — has spent a lot of time working and touring in Europe. His current focus has been on a duo project with French producer/DJ Sorg, which released a pair of EPs — 2014’s Ribbons & Razors and 2016’s Soon, which featured “Security,” a track with Cincinnati MC Boogie Bang (Brian Greer), the video for which was shot in Over-the-Rhine.
The twosome — dubbed, simply enough, Sorg & Napoleon Maddox — is currently on an extensive French tour in support of their debut full-length, Checkin Us, which was released on March 9.
Sorg is a dazzling beat-artiste, crafting a rich, layered backdrop on Checkin Us that masterfully blends Soul, Funk, Electro and other elements and vibes into something colorful and imaginatively unique. Maddox has long been a world-class MC and this collaboration shows him at the top of his game, as much a showcase for his untouchable vocal and lyrical skills as anything he’s done up to this point. Drawing discriminately from seemingly every major era of Hip Hop, his rhyming schematics and flow on Checkin Us are like a clinic in creative but foundationally flawless MCing.
The album opens with “Shark Men,” which floats on a bed of world-beat-like rhythms and chants and is painted in with throbbing bass and graceful electronic waves and squiggles, while the sublimely head-bopping and thoughtful title track is craftily padded with a collage of hypnotic vintage Electro atmospherics. Boogie Bang returns for another great feature on “Colony Falls,” which offers one of many great examples on the album of Sorg’s talent for beat textures, layering a live drum kit loop, fills and handclaps to conjure an engulfing and engaging groove. A could-be radio hit, “What’s Your Joy?” features a monster vocal hook and philosophical lyrics about looking beyond materialistic value to find happiness: “I won’t feel robbed, I won’t be mad/I won’t be stressed about stuff I had/’Cause if it’s possible to have, I can get it again/Or never lose it at all, like love or friends.”
Checkin Us closes with a rewiring of “Philander,” the first single from singer/songwriter Glen Hansard’s debut solo album, 2012’s Rhythm and Repose. It’s a “cover” of sorts, with Hansard’s vocals sampled throughout, but the track is slow-boiled in a bubbling funkiness, with new lyrics and melodies that use the original as a jumping off point. Where Hansard’s song is whirl of simmering, resigned sadness over a cheating lover, Sorg and Maddox transform it into a buoyant, sensual treatise of passionate but aching desire.
It’s a great example of Sorg & Napoleon Maddox’s deft ability to build something exhilarating and fresh out of inspirational pieces, something that is pervasive on all 11 tracks on the album. With Checkin Us, the intercontinental dynamic duo has cooked one of the best Hip Hop albums of 2018 so far, and it deserves to be heard far and wide.
Here’s the video for the album’s latest single, “What’s Your Joy?”
The album is available digitally on all major platforms. Click here for links. There are still a few days left to contribute to the duo’s crowdfunding campaign for the self-released Checkin Us and receive vinyl and/or CD versions of the album.
For more info on the project visit facebook.com/sorgandnapoleonmaddox.
Contact Mike Breen: [email protected]
