C-REAL BUSINESS SUITES, DRESS AND SHOES (BSDS) EP REVIEW
It’s becoming quite a thing now that artistes are choosing to share special moments with their fans. Social media ‘meet and greet’ seems not to be enough. Artistes are not inviting their fans to their birthday parties. They are rather, giving them gifts to last them a lifetime to commemorate their special days- free music.
The first to walk this path was JaySo with his 6-track 0106 EP released on his birthday. C-Real’s latest, Business Suites, Dress and Shoes (BSDS) EP was also released on his birthday as his present to his fans on his birthday, 16th July.
Regarded by many hip hop heads and purist as one of the best lyricist around, C-Real on BSDS proved once again why he’s not only a rapper but a poet-his poetry skills has been floating through his music for a long while.
BSDS is concise-5 tracks- yet the themes swing from one of self-love and belief and misplaced priorities as evident on the opening track Lifeline, where C-Real advices against pretentious behaviours: you dying inside but you smiling/just pretending for who? Look inside/tell yourself the truth) and proceeds to remind us about positive will power (tell yourself I’ll rise above the tide/and glide across the clouds like a star in the night sky).
In an era where societal pressures and strong media definition of what beauty means is getting many people especially women doubt their physical attributes and in the process lose their self-esteem, C-Real, on Your Love assures a lover not to be bothered by these pressures and love herself: you lost in all the lies they feed you/ through your twitter feed to fit into the stereotype/does re-imagining life make everything right? Being beautiful is not an attitude/you don’t need to change your wardrobe/ you need to change your mind’
With a beat punctured by perfectly laid horns loop, C-Real comfortably ride the beats, sharing motivational thoughts and urging all to never give up their hustle on the Nel Magnum (Roger That) produced Make It Work. That tune is one of the stand out tracks off DSBS. The EP boast only one feature- dancehall artiste Stonebwoy on the up-tempo, dancehall tinged Who Dem.
The last track is something different from anything C-Real is noted to have done. A Solid Mind is a piece of art where the producer instrumentalized each word of C-Real as he describes his craft and offer social commentary on this spoken word piece. C-Real pays tribute to music –and the instruments-whiles tackling both human, political and social schemes that contradict our convictions: ‘we think it’s ok to stop thinking/We act as though each act or show is as blunt and plain as snow/ No texture, low measure, no expectations, no pressure’
BSDS boast a very compelling production work. Producers Nel Magnum, Mike Millz and MisterHBKid proved why they are part of the few young producer prospects in Ghana currently. C-Real’s raps despite being loaded with real life realities, is coated in an almost light-hearted manner.
