The Beat Surrender

A couple of years ago I reviewed the self-titled debut album from Black Grass (aka Mex) having bought the first few EPs, I was instantly blown away by the album, it sounded fresh and brought a real different edge to the field of UK hip-hop at the time. I think the thing that helped it to stand out was that it wasn’t just straight up hip-hop, you got soulful moments like Going Home thrown into the album.

After the release of the album everything seemed to go a little bit quiet on the release front, probably no great surprise when you consider that Mex has toured Australia three times and has opened shows for Jurassic 5, Public Enemy and Grandmaster Flash to name but a few.

So with a growing reputation as one of the worlds leading (yet still most under rated) DJ’s it’s pleasing to see that he hasn’t let things slide on the recording front. The fruits of his labours comes in the shape of twelve track follow up album A Hundred Days In One, which adds even more diversity to the mix than the eponymous album did, this time you get plenty of funk, soul, jazz and even reggae intermingled with the more hip-hop based tracks.

Fortunately the extra variety doesn’t impair the quality on offer here and it shows that Black Grass isn’t going to standstill as a project. It starts off fairly low key with a Latin jazz beat on Lucha Contra De La Injusticia, the track ebbs and flows along beautifully and before you know it the track is drawing to a close at just short of seven minutes.

Then comes the reggae track Oh Jah which features Marnyah and the first ‘hip-hop’ track Lines Of Defence which would make a great single release. One of the countries leading rappers Jhest helps out on this track and adds real quality to the song. The fourth track throws you a bit, it starts like a classic rock song but then quickly develops once the hip-hop beat comes in.

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