REVIEW | EARTHGANG HOPE FOR ‘NO MORE BAD KARMA’ WITH THEIR VIBRANT PERFORMANCES

In an era of social and polit­ic­al uncer­tainty, music that can con­nect is needed more than ever. EarthGang man­age to bring just that with their soul-touch­ing sounds.

Last week, I Am Hip Hop has the pleas­ure of exper­i­en­cing a night of vibrancy as the Atlanta based out­fit per­formed at the Elec­tric in Brix­ton. The pair have been mak­ing a name for them­selves recently fol­low­ing a dec­ade of break­ing through.

The group’s major label debut, Mir­ror­land was released under Spillage Village/Dreamville last month. The artists did­n’t waste time in shar­ing sounds from the pro­ject. As the lights went low, the crowd waited in anti­cip­a­tion to hear some hip hop-soul fusion. When the lights came back on, there was a huge ova­tion as EarthGang per­formed the LP’s intro track, LaLa Chal­lenge. 

This track per­fectly sum­mar­ised the duo’s bal­anced abil­ity to rap and sing at dif­fer­ent tones and tem­pos. The per­form­ance star­ted at a relaxed pace before the beat switched up and the fast-paced raps came in. The audi­ence went crazy with the change, caus­ing the party to offi­cially start.

The frenzy con­tin­ued with EarthGang’s rendi­tion of album track, Top Down. Johnny Venus and Doc­tur Dot went back and forth with their flows before bring­ing the tempo down once again. Proud Of U was the per­fect song to con­nect with the crowd on a more emo­tion­al level.

I’ve been through the dark­ness and through the bleak

You done held my heart each and every beat

And checked on me when I ain’t wanna eat

And held me tight when the game on tweak, yeah

The con­tem­pla­tion con­tin­ued with the intro­duc­tion of This Side. This song is full of tran­quil­ity with a smooth beat and ana­lyt­ic­al themes. Des­pite the relaxed tone of the deliv­ery, there was an under­ly­ing som­bre­ness in the lyrics.

We can escape

We can leave this place

They took Nip, took X

Just a hat­in’ ass nigga, hope that I ain’t next

The pair showed their ver­sat­il­ity while per­form­ing the next track, Swiv­el. This song resembles a dark­er mood, with a boom bap soundtrack. The bars are much more hard-hit­ting here with the pair talk­ing of pain­ful experiences.

Run up on you any minute, you’ll be gone

I know nig­gas dead out of desperation

RIP my nigga Alan, damn, I wish you would’ve stayed at home

Learned to make the best out of shitty situation

No com­plain­ing, no more Xan, I leave the medi­cine alone

EarthGang really showed their abil­ity to take album tracks to the next level through live per­form­ances. Each song was per­formed with high energy, no mat­ter what the style was. This is some­thing that the pair nev­er fail to do. Their recent COL­ORS per­form­ance is a huge example of how they can enhance their music.

The musi­cians push the motto of ‘No More Bad Karma’ a line that is men­tioned in their 2017 single, Robots. Sub­sequently, the con­tent from their latest pro­ject implies that they are look­ing to use their music to strongly con­nect with others.

With Mir­ror­land being EarthGang’s major label debut, the group looked like nat­ur­als on the big stage. There is no doubt that these artists have been put­ting the work in over the years to get where they are now. Cre­at­ing along­side Dream­ville their coun­ter­parts such as J. Cole, J.I.D, Ari Len­nox, and Bas, will con­trib­ute to EarthGangs rising journey.

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Sumit Singh

Sum­it is a his­tor­i­an from Croy­don, South Lon­don. He spe­cial­ises in music, art, cul­ture and mango lassi.

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