Latest visual from Mr Key & Greenwood Sharps is everything that’s great about the uniquely deep sonic landscape of the duos latest album Green & Gold. Video by Paula Palazon featuring Key alone, spitting soliloquies to the wild is perfectly fitting for the recent body of work that is equally melancholy and a celebration of the beauty that’s left in the world. Gold.
At a time when the horizons of UK rap are in a constant state of expansion, there are rappers and producers across the country carving themselves a unique space within a scene that, despite standing decades strong, is seemingly yet to reach its peak. Since the birth of UK hip hop, artists have been pushing the boundaries of the genre. While some attempts to break new ground miss the mark and fall flat, there are others who’ve excelled in reshaping the form with their craft.
When Mr Key and Greenwood Sharps released their debut in 2015, it was a landmark for the genre. Four years on and Yesterday’s Futures still holds its own space within the ever-expanding hip hop landscape. With its rawness and complexity having struck such a chord with its audience, you’d be forgiven for thinking that any follow up from the duo would struggle to meet the standard they’d set with their debut—forgiven, still, but you’d be wrong.
The Green and Gold E.P is follow up to that highly acclaimed debut. Coming in at seven tracks long, in its broadest sense, Green and Gold is an exquisitely articulated insight into the inner universe of the wordsmith. In another, it is a love letter to the intricacy, delicacy and chaos of the natural and human worlds (and a homage to how they intertwine). By its end, it is a celebration of all that is encompassed in being alive.
In each element of this project the influence of the natural world is evident. Its title refers to a dialogue between the green landscape of the UK and the dusty gold landscape of Andalusia (a region of Spain bordering the southern coast); as well as to the “dynamic between the sun and photosynthesising organisms, the driving force of life on earth”. We also hear it in Key’s frequent reference to elements of nature in his lyrics, and in Sharps’ use of sounds resembling rippling water in ‘THE GOOD INTENTIONS PAVING CO.’ just seconds into the E.P, or the birdsong in ‘PALACE OF THE SUN’.
Lyrically the project is packed with anecdotes where universal human experiences are brought to life through Key’s imagery. Key often moves quickly between love-fuelled statements to a dark, honest, expression of suffering; the third track, ‘LUV IS ALL U NEED M8’, opens with the line “the universe is beautiful, we’re intimate, I’m into it but sometimes I wake up like fuck you all ‘cause I don’t give a shit”. Lyrical content aside, there’s a darkness to Key’s voice that often haunts even some of his most celebratory lines.
Sharps’ production is beautifully harmonious with Key’s storytelling throughout. He uses both organic and synthetic sound; creates space and closes in on it in such a way that mirrors the tones Key embodies in each corner of the E.P perfectly. The intricacy of Sharps’ sonic landscape is found in no competition with the detail of Key’s lyricism.
Green and Gold is a deeply honest account of what it is to be human. Key and Greenwood Sharps create a world that, despite being so personal, puts into words the emotional experiences of many. This is another body of work for many to fall in love with.
Green and Gold will be released this Friday alongside it’s very own short film. Pre-order it here now.
Choosing a 1,500 capacity venue for your 4th birthday celebration is a ballsy move by anyone’s standards, unless maybe you’re Blu Ivy or North West but the prospect seems less daunting when you’re talking about the UK Hip Hop powerhouse label that is High Focus Records.
Taking a step up from their humble roots in Brixton Jamm and Plan B, the pioneering UK Hip Hop collective will be celebrating their fourth year of existence at the famous Brixton Electric in the same unapologetically confident and truly original manner that we have come to expect from High Focus Records.
Boasting a roster full of fresh and innovative trail blazers like Edward Scissortongue and the labels founder Fliptrix, High Focus Records have stood out as a beacon of hope in what has previously considered by some as a dying scene, and they have definitely been putting in the hard graft over the past four years with over 20 albums released to date.
Exemplifying the slightly more artistically surreal side of High Focus on Friday night, will be Fliptrix joined by fellow label mates Verb T, BVA MC and Leaf Dog who form the avant-garde concept group, The Four Owls. It’s with this diverse and progressive range of acts that High Focus nights always promise satisfy the full spectrum of UK Hip Hop fans and they continually prove they are definitely not lacking style or substance.
Not only will the full line-up of High Focus artists be representing on the night but they will also be sharing the stage with some of the biggest names in UK Hip Hop including the legendary Klashnekoff, Jehst and the man credited with reviving afro futurism, Onoe Caponoe.
This will be a truly fitting way to celebrate four years of consistently high quality output from the label that continues to push the boundaries and challenge preconceived notions of the UK Hip Hop scene.
Full line-up and event details:
PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS:
Friday 16th May – 10pm-6am
Tickets:
Super Early Birds/Early Birds/1st Release – SOLD OUT!
£12 2nd Release
M.O.T.D
Available from:
Ticket Arena | Resident Advisor | Fatsoma
18+ I.D Required // R.O.A.R
New official video for Dirty Dike – Future Posse Cut One Thousand Feat. Stig Of The Dump, Dr Syntax, BVA, DatKid, Verb T,Jam Baxter, Edward Scissortongue, Mr. Key, Fliptrix & Leaf Dog. Produced by Pete Cannon.
From ‘Return of The Twat’