New Artist Profile: Ocean Black

A recent number of tracks that have been brought to my attention come from the band Ocean Black. The band members consist of Rad Atefi (Ocean Man) and Quentin Walker (Illville Crew), and these guys are doing something pretty cool. Its a hip hop sound with elements of surf rock blues and world music I took a listen to some of their new tracks and here are some of my impressions in a few quick breakdown reviews:

The world keeps spinning round:

3.5/5

Comes across as sort of an underground sound but with a real upbeat sort of style. You can tell the mixing is sort of a home studio but they have done fairly well with the tools on hand. The beat is really happy and flows so well with the song. This would be a nice feel good song to have on with a bunch of friends and maybe a bit of a club thumper. Its got elements of rock with some wicked guitar solos towards the end as well as a bit of a techno element to it. Its catchy and has some fairly decent lyrics. Not so much controversial in nature but just a good party tune. Its a hip hop song you could play in a public school and not get into trouble which some might be really turned off by. Still the lyrics put a big smile on my face, I especially enjoyed hearing “We're the bees knees” instead of the regular cliché hiphop shout out.

Charley Sheen:

3/5

Holy topical! Another great party tune from Ocean black. They sampled some classic surfer rock in another great party tune. I especially enjoyed the sampled added in from sheens quotes. Its hard to believe the whole thing was composed over a 24 hour period. The flow is great with the sampled beat although the lyrics for this one is fairly simple and little less g rated than the world keeps spinning round, its a great slow jam. This is not a clubbing song by any means but it makes for a catchy lyrics. With synth weaving in and out of the beat in parts this adds a really funky element to the song. Yet another nice guitar solo put in towards the end keeping with the bluesy rock hip hop theme. I hope Ocean Black gets some serious mention for this song, I have a feeling Mr sheen would be proud of the mention.

Namaste:

3/5

With a real world music feel to this one the mixing seems to be way cleaner in this track. Vocals are excellent and clear. With sort of an island surf feel mixed with world music feel this is another slower jam more for personal listening. A real spacey guitar track closes the song and branches out from the background guitars a lot. It turns the surf feel up a notch for certain. The backing vocals are amazing sort of exemplifying a Lauren hill feel they tie in well with the world music surf fusion they have created for this track. From the description you can probably tell this is not a common hip hop track in the least. It makes for easy listening and is a good chill out track. On an album with party tunes however I could see this turning into the hangover track and being labeled as album filler.

If you wanted to check out more of Ocean Black or follow them on facebook they can be found here.