When was the last time you were listening to a new artist and just couldn’t help but stop whatever else you were doing in that moment, sit back, smile and enjoy? Honestly, we don’t care. But we care about the next time.
Where do we begin? Beat picking? Check. Unique voice? Check. Flawless flows, distinctive storytelling, interesting feature artists, excellent production and most of all a personality, an identity – check, check, check!
We haven’t been this excited about an artist for a long time and artist Arod give us every reason to be with his uplifting debut LP ‘Lend me your ear’.
We’re looking at a complete package already, even though we are only witnessing the first outlet of the Austin, Texas, born and raised artist.
A young man, who first got in touch with his craft when his dad would rap to him and his sister while home from stints in jail.
Arod works through his eventful childhood and youth in his lyrics, displaying the struggles of a young boy raised by his single grandmother as well as affiliations to the streets and the pursuit of a great future.
From the very first notes, the very first lines on his debut, Arod take us inside his world, tells us his story, talks about what it it feels like to be a young black man in the times of an important civil rights movement, while dedicating his passion and life to music and trying to make a better world for the ones around him.
And not only does he tell the story, he sells it too. And that might only be one of the big differences between Arod and other artists.
There is no space for fake flexing or bragging in his music, his stories are real, you can hear it and you can feel it. His flows on the soulful beats; the album includes a lot of excellent sampling, effortlessly take you into the world he lives and grew up in.
The smart artist graduated from high school despite his early life’s hardships and only dropped out of college to chase his dream – with this record taking him more than one step closer to it.
The album was announced by his single release ‘Adolescent’ which easily makes it into our top 20 songs of the year. The motivational track, that opens with a dedication to George Floyd and all victims of racism and police brutality in the US, gave us a fair heads up what we could expect from his album.
Not only did he back up the expectations built after the single release on his long player, he also shows countless other facets, flows and insights that leave us with a single question – when are we going to get more?
