Album Review: 2 LIVE! by K, Le Maestro
Five years after Whip Music, the London producer turns a seventeen-track guest list into one record, and his bass-heavy drums are the reason it holds together.
Flipping somebody else’s record into something that will go viral is a parlor trick a thousand SoundCloud kids can execute; taking a roomful of guest voices and making it sound like the album is the output of one individual is the harder job, the one that separates a beatmaker from a bandleader. K, Le Maestro has spent most of the last decade engaged in the first task, a UK beatmaker known in London for the ongoing “NOT DROPPING” flip series and a 2021 debut, Whip Music, which was done in overt deference to J Dilla and Madlib. 2 LIVE!, the sophomore effort arrives five years later, featuring over a dozen rappers and vocalists and one producer so confident in his headlining ability that he points out how good his beats are at every possible opportunity between tracks.
Every room K constructs features a loud bass element, and the only one to get its more intense expression here is the very beginning of the proceedings “THE RETURN,” opening with the admonishment “This game is meant for a select circle of few” pinned over a tight, head-nodding bounce carried by its heavy low end, and this percussive, kick-drum dominant feel is the foundation upon which every guest raps and sings. Blue November’s best take at the feeling occurs on “RUGGED,” a squared-off stomp that makes its heavy bottom end pound its rapping at you in an insistent loop until it’s completely on the beat while he delivers tales of scammed individuals and betrayals (“Stab wounds in my back, but I patched them,” “Pop the trunk, get these fuck boys outta rap.”). The other standouts here are Topaz Jones’ turn on “100 BANDS, “on which he delivers the bulk of the LP’s best writing as the bass still dominates, but this time the drums provide him space (“I had to crack at least a couple eggs to make an omelet,” “Industry plant, I came up out the garden”) even though the track’s thick low end prevents the boast from fully leaving the ground.
K has no desire to let you forget the incredible work he has done here; over “MADE ‘EM SAY’s” robust and rumbling feel, he puts himself on mic with Planet Giza and takes shots at himself while being complimented by his guests(“I’ve been feeling like the GOAT for about twenty-five years,” “Future king of the beats, they call me K Dilla”) and as the talkbox cruise of “4 U 2 CRUISE 2” fades for a brief interlude, his friend calls him a shape-shifter. He does do great work; all the guests he has included are worthy, but he does not really need to present so much evidence.
No guest on the list can out-rap Reuben Vincent. “HANDS UP” rides James Poyser’s keyboard gloss and a busier call-and-response thud under a call to the room: “I say fuck it, throw your hands high,” and Vincent laces the verse with belief and hunger in a tight press. He starts in the project—“My pops was playin’ pocket, mama prayin’”—pleads with the lord “One more chance, word to Big Poppa,” and lays the grieving out naked—“The little brother who died about it can’t live without it.” It’s a brash young boast, but Vincent provides it with the gravity of somebody who’s already put names to headstones to get to the mic.
When Vincent’s gone, the other singers on the list chase desire and mistrust of it. The funniest takes on that equation belong to Devin Morrison over “NEW COUPE,” where a Hollywood pick-up attempt shatters on contact with real life: he brags of pulling up in a QS60 before instantly dialing it back. All his woman asks for is an S-Class and the money to make it happen. He can only claim he doesn’t drive German and likes weed, however. And when it slows down, doubt begins to burrow in. Sun tries “GIVE IT 2 ME” to convince herself; “I wasn’t ready ‘cause I’m in love with how this feels” before eventually asking “What is you down for?” Npoles over “IZ U?” interrogates the same commitment issues, owning her fear and craving while begging; and on “WAY 2 CLOSE” Jaszy Shavers goes as bodily as possible, unraveling on her own reservations while still close enough “I can smell you still on my skin.” No singer answers.
All of the romance isn’t sweet. MAVRYCK, with “SECRETS” makes jealousy into a stand-off that often tiptoes into threat, where the hook “Don’t hurt anybody/But I gotta know it” eventually collapses into chokeholds, and ‘I slug you like the shit ‘cause it’s gettin’ you off.” The next time the same raw desire pops up is a few tracks later over ‘DANGER,’ the taut, angled bounce where RM47 lets the suspicion go: “Who cares if they watch?/Come and let me ignite it, babe.”
“SO SERIOUS” is the one finished-sounding love song here, featuring an all-K-as-human cast. This one takes Zakiya’s “My Love Won’t Fade Away” and shapes it into a slow drag, 808-crisp drums, and soft keys with Tracy’s thin, high voice right on top. Most of the other K-as-human voices spend the entire song wondering if the feeling is real; Tracy knows, already: “Take your time with love in your eyes,” he sings back to a flustered partner, over and over, the sentiment settling: “I love how you take me so serious.” Then, by the bridge, he gives up entirely and sings solely, in a near-wail, “My love won’t fade away,” in his original singer’s voice, and means it each time.
Give a singer-collaborator the full setup, and you end up with “BOUNCE OUT,” K’s fullest track yet, built with NUMERO13 and Tovv to contain ample room for Rae Khalil to rap, sing, and switch speeds with a relaxed grace, plants a West Coast flag (“The West just bounced out, what’s happenin’?”), and declares, “I’m a star,” glowing with intent. She places the previous decade inside her verse, “It’s been a decade of hardship and God’s will, my angels surrounded me,” alongside a flat cockiness (“Pressure builds diamonds”). This song is K, Le Maestro, the big, wide beat wide enough to accommodate her sheer force of personality, yet anchored steady enough beneath her. Khalil finishes it riding out on the hooky chant, “Sit back, watch the whole world get behind this,” and for the first time on a K, Le Maestro record, the boldest claims belong to the person up on the mic.
Great (★★★★☆)
Favorite Track(s): “HANDS UP,” “BOUNCE OUT,” “SO SERIOUS”