add2-khrysis-heaven-hell

 

There are albums that actually know how to stick to the theme/storyline given. When this happens, we usually are blessed with music that can actually either reach many or can be known as one of those great moments. It has happened before. Recent albums by Kendrick Lamar (Good Kid, M.a.a.d City) to even Kool Keith and Dan the Automator’s classic (Dr. Octagon) reminds us of when this works wonders. Thus, having a theme, or storyline, that guides the entire album assists in the quality of the overall project.

 

When Add 2 and Khrysis came together for the criminally short Between Heaven & Hell, the theme was given in the title. What we have is a mixtape that should have never been given out for free.

 

Throughout the album (not that sorry E.P. mess), we have Add-2 synonymously spitting some of his most introspective rhymes and the toughest flows he could ever approach. If you take a good listen to “Runnin’”, he uses his mastery of breath-control and the English language to explain how people run away from their issues (until they catch up). “The Death of Chicago” allows Add-2 to delve into the “sweet smell of corruption” in a city that constantly “sleepin’ with Sleep’s cousin”. Even on “The Ugly Side of Beautiful”, he laments over his grandmother’s dementia, the death of his people, and finding beauty through it all. Throughout the entire album, Add-2 works to “show the stuff that they don’t show like a black light”.

 

It is the duality of his messages that attains the ears by exhibiting the best, and the worst, of the human condition.

 

add2-khrysis-heaven-hell-tracklist

 

 

The production, however, will probably get as much props as the rhymes on this effort. Khrysis shows us why 9th Wonder holds him to such high esteem. On “Club Heaven/Club Hell”, the beat changes between the “heavenly sounds” and “hedonistic rhythms” to show where Add-2’s story switches up. The ethereal beauty in Khrysis’s production can easily be heard during the end of “The Ugly Side of Beautiful” with its extended break. However, that doesn’t explain the simplicity of what makes the production such an audible treat. Khrysis uses the basis of soul samples and boom bap to craft a sound-bed for Add-2 to rhyme over. With this sound-bed, Add-2 can move minds, and sometimes bodies, with ease.

 

Being his second mixtape, and one of the better releases of 2013, makes Between Heaven & Hell necessary listening. Add-2 was recently added to the Jamla roster. This being his “coming out party” doesn’t make that much difference in the end result. The end result comes from the culmination of great rhymes and enthralling production. At the end of the day, Earth is between heaven and hell; it is the inhabitants of said planet that need to hear this EP.

 

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