"Black Joy Matters"
Elucid, who released the fantastic Save Yourself just last year, is back again with Valley Of Grace. This project continues in the same vein of Save Yourself: it's dark, industrial, socially aware and pro-black abstract hip hop music. Elucid has great wordplay - his firm delivery and grim voice mixes extremely well with the production style and the subject matter here. The album opens with an instrumental with a fantastic title that is ridiculously relevant in these horrible times politically - especially for people of color - "self care is a revolutionary act", which consists of a dark instrumental with a sample that states "I'm taking time away to dream". Although it is arguably not a highlight musically, despite being quite good, it sticks out based on it's message alone. Just as Solange's "Borderline (An Ode To Self Care)" did last year, "self care is a revolutionary act" reminds marginalized people that sometimes it's ok - and arguably necessary for your mental health - to just tune out from all the horrible news.
This short project, clocking in at under 30 minutes, really goes into overdrive after the third track. This is not to say the first three tracks are bad - they are quality, it's just that almost every track after is on a different level. "piano wire" has Elucid "watching America burn from distant shores", describing the country as "a dying star". The song contains perhaps one of the best one liners on the record: "I don't want justice if it's not transformative". Another stand out is "no release", which starts out with a very industrial, futuristic beat that sounds like some type of machine, which eventually gives way to a kind of groovy, muffled bass line when Elucid starts rapping. Equally impressive is "strength is admired humanity is denied", which has a fantastic beat based around loops of keys playing supported by electronic bleeps and bloops.
Valley of Grace seems to be a project that is inspired by two key factors, the first obviously being Elucid's experience as an African-American, and the rage against America that comes with that. The second factor being how his African-American identity informed his experience in South Africa as a "African-American alien wandering in motherland", which is the opening line of "dutch wax". Seeing as parts of the album were recorded in South Africa and there are various references to the country's history ("black man don't speak Afrikaans"), it's safe to assume that a good part of Valley of Grace was influenced by his time in the country. With Trump's victory after a campaign that was fueled by racism and xenophobia, and coming with that a placement of a white nationalist, Steve Bannon, in the white house, it's quite obvious what Elucid is commenting on (read: America's past and present of systemic racism) when he states "nothing is broke and this is how it's supposed to run/whiteness is a fortress western king stronghold" on "talk disruptive for me". Elucid has returned with a haunting, at times dissonant, and above all forward thinking hip-hop record - fans will not be disappointed.
