Bright and breezy. Not necessarily what you’d expect after 10 years in the business but that it what it is. Defari (Likwit Crew) and DJ Babu (Beat Junkies/ Dilated Peoples) have combined forces for the Likwit Junkies – a blend of Defari’s Likwit Crew heritage and the legendary Babu’s personal triumph with the World Famous Beat Junkies DJ collective.
By and large the album ploughs straight down the middle, failing to raise either eyebrows or expectations with a series of steady beats providing an efficient but uninspiring presence for Defari’s perky yet elementary flow. Only when the guests arrive do things really begin to party. Noelle’s contribution to album opener ‘L.J’s Anthem’ adds some sultry, smokey class to the languid flow of the piano hook, gorgeously opening up the gamut of easy listening samples and devices that continue through tracks like ‘One Day Away’ and the judicious rejection of the smack-line that is ‘Change’ – a cautionary tale with a fair degree of cautionary production – light on the devices but hard on reality and arguably the most confident cut on the album.
The Likwit Junkies debut is a strange one to quantify: a conundrum of smooth flowing soul grooves on the one hand and awkward mainstreaming on the other. ‘Keep Doin’ It’ fails to really involve the James Brown soul grooves it invites and the Tubular Bells signature on the portentous and melodramatic ‘One Time’ squares up to the fight without showing any real evidence of throwing a decent punch, a failure in part down to the hackneyed riffing and heavy as lead philosophising. And how the Kingston Twelve managed to get an invite to this party is anyone’s guess. The generous yet ill-proportioned pop of ‘6 In The Morning’ belongs to another record, to another artist in another time-period. Hip-hop it is not. No matter how open you leave it.
Bizarrely enough though, its this awkward love-affair with the mainstream that both lifts and lets down the album. The loping beats and sinking bass runs of ‘S.C.A.N.S’ has some class production credits but it fails to lift itself beyond the germ of a good idea. The same could be said of Rakaa’s sublime gospel contribution to ‘Dark Ends’ which beyond the tasty guitar chops and the vocal riff itself spirals helplessly toward mediocrity. Only tracks like ‘The Hop’ and ‘Salute’ really manage to cut it – but its all still a little Will Smith. The wrong man in black on this occasion.