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Juse: Global Casino

Since starting out eight years ago, Juse has worked with a number of our most talented MCs including Scribe, King Kapisi, and Che Fu. For his own album Justin Ferguson has called on a wide range of MCs from within New Zealand and overseas to lace his beats with their rhymes. It should perhaps not seem surprising in the modern era that the local MCs are often the ones that shine. Smashproof are able to line-up shoulder-to-shoulder alongside New York rapper Kaeson on Ride Til I Die and Tha Feelstyle makes a stand-out contribution to the track Same Old Issues. With any producer album of this type there is the difficulty that many of the contributors have only been brought together for a single track and this does see some of the MCs on this album falling back on their battle rhymes rather than bringing anything original to the table. Fortunately Juse's beats are more than capable to hold it all together, with thumping drums and funk-infused bass lines overlayed with nice touches of keyboards, samples, and soulful vocal hooks. A fine starter album from his own suitably titled Move the Crowd Records.

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