Beit Nun - Where The Art Is (Volume 1)
Having offered to review music for the blog some people actually called my bluff and sent me some things. Due to a number of factors it’s taken me until now to start, but here goes…an offering from Beit Nun. Beit Nun is a rapper from Macclesfield who released a demo EP a few years ago and is bringing us another EP later this year. In the meantime we are left with this collection of tracks from the last two years featuring collaborations with a number of other artists.
Before playing this my first thought was an extremely lazy “…maybe this’ll sound like Braintax”, closely followed by “…looks alright, Pedigree Chumps are involved (on a few beats)”. Following the intro it kicks off with “Are You Ready?” which features a number of MCs each taking a turn over a Noz (of the aforementioned Pedigree Chumps) beat. Beit Nun holds his own which is no mean feat next to 777 and Doctor Freud who are both clearly accomplished MCs. Please note that me bigging up Freud has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he and his harem of lovely ladies allowed me to accompany them into the Foreign Beggars show on their guestlist a while back, nothing whatsoever!
777 guests on another track later on to good effect. I had previously only seen him post on UKHH (I’m assuming it’s the same one) so nice to hear him rhyming. Unfortunately a few of the other guest MCs seem to fall into the trap of attempting to fit lots of multi syllable rhymes onto a beat they don’t suit. Nothing too jarring but certainly one of the observations I made along the way.
We get close to cliched subject matter on a couple of tracks, but I suppose that shouldn’t stop you addressing something if that’s what you feel. “Something’s got to give” documents the age old struggle of working a minimum wage job in order to make music, or paying bills versus paying dues. “The Scene” shouts out some notable figures in UK hip hop while addressing the old yank accent issue and making observations on the North-South divide in the scene.
In summary I would say he’s a decent rapper. Sounds like a bland statement or a veiled criticism but I can assure you it’s not. He avoids clashing with any of the beats, and a few of his rhymes genuinely had me rewinding to listen again. It sounds like his heart’s in the right place considering he does a lot of work in schools and youth groups, and the kids could do a lot worse than listen to him. Keep an eye (or an ear) out for his forthcoming EP on Bare Records and hit him up on Myspace to find out more.
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May 8th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
nice review mr A double T. more of these please.