- Rwandan-New Zealand rapper Raiza Biza & Melbourne powerhouse Remi have really taken collaboration to heart on their new EP, Black Hole Sun. The six tracks also jam in guest-spots for Sampa The Great and Baro and, of course, Black Milk, who also provides all the beats. They’ve basically assembled a supergroup, but this sounds nothing like the lazy, self-indulgent and misfiring affair you get when way-too-many chefs get around the pot. This EP is actually the opposite. With a lot to say and an unexpectedly fresh way of saying it, everyone here is on the same page: tense, focused and hungry.
The advance single, Runner is actually the least representative of the core sound of the record, except that is fast, on-point and good. Almost a brag-track, as it crows through the hook: “Ay look at my mojo” but not in a way that’s boring. That’s because it neatly folds into Raiza Biza, Remi and Baro delivering a much more believable description of their lived experience, some of which is, unsurprisingly, an experience of living black. For instance, “When you rhyming at the show, then you walk up out the door / And then you go back to what this shit was really like before / And they wonder why we don't fuck with their venue anymore.” This is the heart and soul of the EP.
After the sunny buzz of Runner’s chorus you get the fast, heavy and heavily syncopated bass beats of Jiggy. Sampa’s contribution comes barrelling straight in, succinctly but powerfully punching through, it’s Sampa’s sound and I was a bit surprised how much it fits with the EP as a whole. A lot of it’s in Black Milk’s beats: consistently, tightly wound, dragging the rapping with them, drilling on through the tracks like there’s no time to waste.
As noted the MCing follows suit, the conscious themes of lived, black experience are delivered with an urgency, a desperation that feels utterly appropriate to the times. It’s more than that though, there’s a sense of anticipation too, of what’s about to happen, now the time’s right. Closer Genesis is a great example, spiralling through anger, despair and hope. “They telling me to stick to a goal, they don’t even know, they don’t even know / So instead I’m going to stick to my soul, you already know, you already know.” In the flood of lyrics sometimes the mood surges up and over the top “This feels like the equalizer / This feels like the power’s in the people hands / The moment that they realise that this is black enterprising / The heavy lifting in the revolution for the very freedom that we’re exercising.” Much of the record -so breathlessly paced- is exciting, but moments like those are thrilling.
The beats are an unusual mix of boom bap and electro, the politics are earnest and the speed is mostly breakneck: Black Hole Sun’s brave new world is come and gone before you realise it, leaving everyone gasping like they’ve just run a race, I imagine. To read it on paper this project should’ve fallen in a heap. Most collaborations this large suffer from the uneasy mix of the personalities involved and differences in vision. Raiza Biza and Remi have brought together a group and a project with a singular focus. It’s success speaks to a shared vision of impressive power.
- Chris Cobcroft.