Build & Destroy

by Black Spade

Black Spade's To Serve With Love was a great album when it came out a couple of years ago, and it's good to hear some new stuff from this talented rapper/producer/sometime singer.  This mixtape is eighteen tracks deep, and over seventy minutes long, which would usually  be way too much for me, but in this instance, the length is perfect.

Spade has a very nice, very chill, post-Dilla quality to his work.  He handles most of the production himself (under the name stoneyrock), but there are also beats from Dorthy Ashby, J. Davey, and Ced No.  This being a mixtape, he's able to sample The Beatles and Stevie Wonder with impunity.  There are guest appearances from Coultrain, and a few people I've never heard of before.

My favourite track on here has to be 'Fall in Love', where Black Spade sings over the Miguel Atwood-Ferguson instrumentation of Dilla's classic beat.  It's a bit of a mash-up as well, with the lyrics coming off the first album.

The aesthetic of the mixtape is best understood on 'The Cool Out', which keeps referring to itself as "the cool out song".  This is a great summer mixtape.