Album Review

It was tempting to believe, when Detroit producer and rapper Black Milk’s last album dropped, that he was an accomplished chameleon, taking the shape of obvious influences like J Dilla, Pete Rock, and Kanye West. Popular Demand was a sprawling metaphysical exercise, with tracks like “Sound the Alarm” that promised an entire alternate universe of bangers. For his new album Tronic, Black Milk threw open the door of the dimensional portal.

Black Milk doesn’t wear his influences on his record sleeve, but he does enumerate them in the first track, the autobiographical gem “Long Story Short.” The track achieves the blunted hypeness of a J Dilla track (Black Milk got his start replacing Dilla as the house producer for rap crew Slum Village), which gives the track a vintage Black Milk sound. But his mic skills have improved considerably since his last album, and his rhymes don’t clunk listlessly behind the bassline. They snap.

Listen to “Long Story Short”

Black Milk loops samples, but he also plays keyboards, and he gave himself a house band (and an organ solo) on the single “Give the Drummer Sum.” It’s a woozy fusion of studio artifice and instrumentalist chops that has enough space for a Chipmunks-speed vocal sample, a sick drum break and a horn line that could have been swiped from an obscure Afrobeat compilation. And it’s indisputable evidence that Black Milk is on to something fresh.

Listen to “Give the Drummer Sum”

Black Milk’s eclecticism is on further display with “Hold it Down,” a track that trades soul samples for a slowed down Gary Numan swipe that twists around the beat like a killer tomato vine from outer space. (That rap producers from the birthplace of techno haven’t done more with electro and New Wave music remains a puzzle.)

Listen to “Hold it Down”

“Hold it Down,” along with the next track, “Losing Out,” reps for Detroit, lyrical territory where Black Milk’s skills shine brightest. From the legacies of Motown producer Barry Gordy and slain rapper Proof to the legal travails of mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, Black Milk packs his city into his rhymes.

Listen to “Losing Out”

“The Matrix” unites Black Milk with certified hip hop legends Pharoahe Monch and DJ Premier. (Black Milk produced the banger “Lets Go” on Monch’s last album.) Monch is one of the best lyricists in hip hop—he’s Diddy’s ghostwriter—and he delivers a predictably brilliant performance that manages to name check Ving Rhames and make fun of hipsters’ jeans in the space of twelve bars.

Listen to “Let’s Go”
Listen to “The Matrix”

But for my money, the most impressive track on the album is a throwaway, a short organ workout called “Tronic Summer.” A festival of synthesizer, the track could be an instrumental interlude on a prog rock record or a Seefeel b-side. Somewhere in the album, Black Milk mentions being on some Jimi Hendrix shit, and here’s the evidence.

Listen to “Tronic Summer”

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