Clocked this existed at 1am last night and left listening to it until this morning to dead any Monday blues. ‘Can’t Go Back’ asserts that Kojey Radical is musically still very much in what scholars in the year 3000 may describe as his “Triumphant Period”. After years in the wilds of low-key poetry and the following phase of often-ominous instrumentalism complimenting a tide of eloquently phrased sorrow and rage… 2018 happened. Kojey’s arrival as a household name last year has heralded a new phase tonally for the poet/MC.
Since ‘97’ cried out a celebration of the Kojey momentum reaching an unstoppable pace, Radical has dropped a handful of releases that are the musical version of doing victory laps. (See ‘Coming Home’ and ‘25’.) For lesser artists, switching to major keys and more positive mental standpoint can be synonymous with going bubblegum and haemorrhaging substance. Not Kojey. ‘Can’t Go Back’ has hopeful wisdom by the bucketload in sync to the funk-heavy production of Holly Taylor, culminating in a sudden descent into a final minute of raw grit reminding us that the Radical creature that clawed its way into the mainstream (while showing obvious disdain for it) is still the hand at the helm.
Oh Yeh. And the video is beautiful as always. More victory laps please.