Nitty Scott, MC – The Art of Chill (2014)
Take everything I say about her with a grain of salt, I’m smitten by Nitty and I give no f*cks about admitting that.
Now that that’s out of the way, The Art of Chill is a very ambitious offering from Nitty. I mentioned it the comment section of the dope A Zip and a Double Click series by Chris Russ right here on nappyafro.com. I wondered why he didn’t recommend it and his response was because he felt “…her project was too obsessed with being into superstitious/mystical stuff and not enough focused on just rapping well”…I can’t argue with the mysticism part. It’s definitely an album with ambitions on being something more than music, nothing is wrong with that at all. Does she rap well often enough? I think so. Is this project cohesive…well, in an artistic way yes. I won’t disagree that it’s varied with its production and subject-matter, but I do feel that this is one of those albums we’ll be able to look back at and realize it’s goodness after a while. Songs like my favorite, “Feng Shui” ft. Eliki, I’m sure will be even more relevant to use in the future. Over a consistent drumwork and celestial bells and chords, Nitty gives us her vibe and approach to life. In stark contrast there are songs like “Knowbody Knows” which is the boom bap-I can fucking rap flow and energy folks claim to want from the female emcees, with none of the aggression that folks hate. You should check this one out, Nitty has something for everyone on here and when she drops that big album, you’ll be scrambling to find this.