Legendary producers third effort breaks new ground

Some say that you judge musical talent by how well the instruments are played, and generally you’d find me in that camp, nodding away happily, but sometimes you fall across an exception that knocks you from your high horse and makes you dream of owning a set of turntables instead of fumbling through a chord book with a cheap acoustic.

The Nextmen hold a sort of awe value by name, adding an authority to anything they produce and, as such, being able to rope in top quality MC’s to do their bidding.

Some of the top up-and-coming names from British hip-hop, as well as those less heard of from abroad, come together to make This Was Supposed To Be The Future, a blueprint for what dub, reggae, dance and drum n bass should sound like when combined.

Quite a mix, yes, but the combined effect is sublime, with each track switching and moving, delving from genre to genre. From funk-laden opener Let it Roll to the dub/hip-hop styling of Blood Fire and then on to the extreme chill-out of Did No Wrong, the mood and tone of the album couldn’t be much better placed.

As for the guest vocalists and contributors, very few could be faulted for their effort. Amongst the most prominent are members of the Part Time Heroes, who add another dimension to the music with their own brand of production and creation.

The stunningly soulful voice of Zarif on Something Got You almost brings elements of lounge music to the party, as well as incorporating a wonderfully dreamy sound combines beautifully with the chill-out nature of some of the beats, real ‘listen in the bath, playing with your ducky and day-dreaming about how beautiful the world is’ music.

The sheer variety of vocalists and MC’s help add variety to a neat variety of beats, and the one criticism could be this range, whilst serving its role perfectly, could be a little more varied.

You also realise the limitations of UK hip-hop - sometimes it really isn’t very good. Even as the most recognisable of the MC’s, Sway really doesn’t quite seem to have an edge when compared to some of the other vocalists on the album.