This artist is no stranger on here as I had the pleasure of reviewing his debut EP titled Foreword last year. Having already made it into our list of The Best New & Emerging Music twice so far this year – a list that I am sure, he will be on a couple more times – I would like to re-introduce to you to Miami native Singer/Songwriter Cris Cab with his new mixtape titled Echo Boom presented by none other than the Billionaire Boy’s Club.
I was so afraid that him being a prodigy of Pharell would see him become more of a Pop artist and take him away from what makes him unique – his Reggae roots. I was happily surprised then that not one of his songs could even be considered Pop, not like there is anything wrong with Pop but we have enough of that. This is the first young Reggae artist in the Modern/Open era it seems like, except you are counting Sean Kingston (emphasis on the word young by the way). But I digress, what you just heard is my favorite track on this mixtape and it’s titled “Turn You On” featuring Shaggy and Melanie Fiona. That bass is simply glorious and the saxophone right there at the end does it for me. The fusion of all those instruments just makes for beautiful music. Shaggy makes this song so legit, with his ad-libs and harmonizing and that unique voice of his and miss Melanie Fiona? Well there is no denying how lovely her voice is. Its a great song…
This 88-Keys (of Locksmith)- produced song is just so lush with the guitar strings and the snare drum, making me want to dance. Titled “Gypsy’s Boulevard“, this is one of those songs that proves to me that Cab is not just infusing Reggae rhythms into his song but actually really understands it and has studied the art from the likes of Bob Marley (think “I Shot the Sheriff”) and that is quite impressive. You can tell that he was influenced a lot from his working with Wyclef, Mavado and Shaggy – three of the best Reggae/Dancehall artists to ever do it – because the quality of his work has greatly improved from his debut EP. Songs like this always tell a story so they are worth paying attention to and in this, he seems to be beating up some people. I doubt Cris could actually fight in real life, but that’s the thing about songs, you can be whoever you want to be in a song.
It’s always hard for me to pick the last song, given that all the songs are great tracks, especially on Echo Boom. Do I give you a song with no features so you hear what the artist is made of or one with features, because there’s just something about the collaboration? Decisions, Decisions! So how about I give you a bonus track then and make this the third song rather than the last. Excited? What you just heard is “Cross Your Fingers” produced by Malay and this you will have to call Reggae-fusion – a mixture of Reggae with Hip-Hop, Drum and Bass and maybe even some Rock and definitely a hint of the Blues with Cab’s vocal stylings there. Its a great song with great production as it starts of with the horns, the synths come in and then to begin the chorus, comes in the bass. Such lovely arrangements…
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I am going to highly recommend this blog!
Ha ha… I was just browsing around and took a look at these reviews. I can’t believe there’s still this much fascination. Thanks for posting about this.