TUNE: James Blake just works. It’s not just anyone who can craft a keyboard line that finds itself perfectly at home pulsating across a darkened club or flowing through a pair of headphones, which is precisely what Blake’s track “Life Round Here” does. It’s no surprise, then, that Chance the Rapper falls right into step on this incredibly satisfying rework. The English crooner’s synthesized riffs and hypnotic crescendos frame Chance’s stuttering wisps of alliteration. Yet perhaps the most evocative moment in the song comes in the last minute or so, when the beat softens and Chance unwinds as he and Blake sing in circles around one another, two unlikely voices dueling in a wonderful hypnosis.
BY: Indie darling, singer/songwriter, and producer extraordinaire James Blake, featuring relative new comer Chance the Rapper, the 20-year-old from Chicago whose mix tape “Acid Rap” has garnered plenty of buzz.
CURRENTLY: In a stroke of good luck (for us), XXL reports that the two artists, who met at this year’s SXSW, hit it off and ended up recording a number of tracks together, including some original material. We can only hope that these tracks will start floating around the Internet very, very soon. Like, tomorrow soon.
—Regina Mogilevskaya
Image courtesy of Chance the Rapper/ Instagram