Hip-hop has been mistaken for many things and it is unlikely that hip-hop, even in its most commercial forms, has ever been mistaken for “smooooove” jazz. Obviously no one has ever explained this to Steve Mckeever and the Hidden Beach label which assembled an all-star collection of session musicians, including guitarist Paul Jackson, Jr., Patrice “baby fingers” Rushen, and saxophonist Everette Harp, for a collection of “smooove” jazz renditions of some recent hip-hop head-nodders. Almost a decade after a wide-range of hip-hop and jazz artists including Guru, Branford Marsalis, Digable Planets, and Greg Osby worked real hard to perfect the jazz-hip-hop hybrid that so many felt was so natural, Hidden Beach’s Unwrapped Vol. 1 quietly returns to that terrain. – Mark Anthony Neal (Pop Matters)
SIDE BY SIDE (Follow UNWRAPPED Caviar Vol. 1)
IG: @getunwrapped
