“What was once a vibrant area now survives as a
reminder that the only thing eternal is change,” Solemn
says when describing the project’s genesis. “Trash and
debris flood the streets, relics of the many lives
lived––each piece with a story to tell.”
Solemn is uniquely equipped to animate each of
these relics with the specificity they deserve. The
rapper, whose work with his fellow North Carolinian,
L’Orange, as the duo Marlowe has been critically
acclaimed, is one of the most vocally acrobatic working
today, able to contort himself into a dizzying array of
different flows and inflections, accomplishing alone the
sort of musical variety that sprawling collectives try and
fail to achieve.
Across its 14 songs, South Sinner Street argues
for Solemn Brigham as one of the most exciting artists in
underground hip-hop, a technical virtuoso who also happens
to be one of the genre’s most surprising, most deeply
personal songwriters. The album evokes the feeling of
climbing onto a house’s roof to survey the nearly-burning
city around you, with all the peril that entails––but also
all the possibility.
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