Kolab: What Comes Next

By Shane Cowlishaw

Jazz-themed hip hop is an underrated genre - great albums by the likes of The Soul Providers and Funky DL have gone by almost unnoticed locally. But you can hardly blame the listening masses, Aotearoa has yet to really produce anything that breaks the barriers in hip hop, so how are people supposed to get to know the good stuff? With odd exceptions like Christchurch's Grymeworks crew and the short-lived Dubious Bros the country has been devoid of any decent boom-bap. That could have changed with the emergence of Auckland crew Kolab. This debut album from J Brown, Scottie B and Tom Everett brings back memories of the early/mid '90s 'golden era' of hip hop. Standout Party to Rock sets the theme of the album, with a call to bring hip hop back to where it began. The rhymes are solid if not groundbreaking, while the production is tinged with DJ Premier-like horns and scratched samples and a warm Pete Rock influenced flow. If you've become disillusioned with hip hop in its new-millennium commercial form, grab this album for a prime refresher of just how good this genre can be.

Related Information

Issues

NZ Musician

August/September 2008