{"id":6553,"date":"2019-03-01T21:03:57","date_gmt":"2019-03-02T02:03:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/?p=6553"},"modified":"2019-03-01T21:03:57","modified_gmt":"2019-03-02T02:03:57","slug":"review-yugen-blakrok-anima-mysterium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/01\/review-yugen-blakrok-anima-mysterium\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Yugen Blakrok &#8211; Anima Mysterium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Question: Is the name &#8220;Yugen Blakrok&#8221; familiar to you? Well is it? If not, then let me give you some info on her.<\/p>\n<p>Yugen Blakrok is a South African rapper hailing from Johannesburg, and she has been doing her thing since 2013 with her first album\u00a0<em>Return of the Astro-Goth,\u00a0<\/em>but she hasn&#8217;t released a follow-up since&#8230; well until now. However before that, last year, she did get some major attention from appearing in the\u00a0<em>Black Panther<\/em> soundtrack, in particular on the track &#8220;Opps&#8221; with Kendrick Lamar and Vince Staples. Truth be told, Yugen killed her verse on that song, and it was one of my favorites tracks from that album (top 5, easily).<\/p>\n<p>Now it&#8217;s 2019, and she&#8217;s finally released her sophomore record\u00a0<em>Anima Mysterium,<\/em>\u00a0so I decided to check out her debut beforehand, and to be short, it was some cool, futuristic hip-hop with a highly &#8217;90s sound in there. I see why Kendrick Lamar and TDE recruited her to be on the soundtrack.<\/p>\n<p>So with that said, how was\u00a0<em>Anima Mysterium?<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"747\" height=\"421\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FtHQ93yOPLE?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Well, if you&#8217;re expecting 12 tracks of songs similar to &#8220;Opps&#8221;, you might get something out of it. The sounds in this project are very futuristic, South African-style beats with touches of boom-bap and horror\/ dark wave as well. All the production is handled by\u00a0Kanif The Jhatmaster, with\u00a0Joel Assaizky contributing on &#8216;Carbon Form&#8217; and 7th Galaxy on &#8216;Obsidian Night&#8217;, and the work from all three is on point, especially with Yugen&#8217;s lyricism in action.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Observing distant memories, fading over ages<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s in the pain of remembrance, leave the structure ever-changing<br \/>\nSaw shape-shifting inspire the nihilist<br \/>\nDecipher mind script, hypotheses tested on self or mad scientists<br \/>\nSpit fire and water, I&#8217;m lion and hydra<br \/>\nAloof in the distance, like the heart&#8217;s stellation of Libra<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Note that in the last two lines, Libra\u00a0 is pronounced as &#8216;lie_bra&#8217; in order to fit the rhyme for &#8216;Hydra&#8217;.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Write lyrics in runes and play the muse<br \/>\nInspire fate to paint predestination\u2019s landscapes<br \/>\nFor the awakened, imaginations are stargates<br \/>\nWhistle, I\u2019m listening\u2013the pilgrim of the house of the wind<br \/>\nI\u2019m the emissary<br \/>\nHearing voices in the breeze, observing airy commentary<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Plus, her flow is extremely on-point with the production sounding like it was made specifically for her, as no one else can rhyme on these beats like she can.<\/p>\n<p>The vibes I&#8217;m getting from this is close to material from Aesop Rock, Wu-Tang, Del The Funky Homosapien, and even Shabazz Palaces. One other similarity she has with those artists: Yugen&#8217;s lyrics are pretty detailed dense. While by no means bad, this is one of those albums where you really need to pay attention and look at the lyrics as you&#8217;re listening to this. The themes of this album revolve around other beings superior to humankind, exposing how humans can be violent, and showing that the road to peace isn&#8217;t going to be a short trip.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\" style=\"text-align:center; display: block;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"youtube-player\" width=\"747\" height=\"421\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/htKhxxZyEEU?version=3&#038;rel=1&#038;showsearch=0&#038;showinfo=1&#038;iv_load_policy=1&#038;fs=1&#038;hl=en-US&#038;autohide=2&#038;wmode=transparent\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border:0;\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-presentation allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\"><\/iframe><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Another change from her debut album is that she has a good amount of features, but these are mostly unfamiliar voices like Historian Himself, Fifi The Raiblaster, BRAVESTARR, Zetina Mosia &amp; Jak Tripper. The only feature that might be recognizable to some underground hip-hop heads is Kool Keith on the track &#8220;Mars Attacks,&#8221; and all the features do perform well with her, but Yugen is still the head honcho of her own album.<\/p>\n<p>But yes, this is indeed a good album, and for those are looking into Yugen Blakrok after hearing her verse on &#8220;Opps&#8221;, you&#8217;ll be pleased with the results of this album with her intriguingly dense bars full of sci-fi wordplay in there and mystical, experimental boom-bap production that catches your attention the whole way through.<\/p>\n<p><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>FINAL VERDICT:<\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><em style=\"font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 400;\">Buy it. Get lost in the Anima Mysterium with this one.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><b>ANIMA MYSTERIUM is distributed\u00a0on I.O.T. Records and is available on CD, vinyl, digital download and streaming services. Check out her music on <a href=\"https:\/\/yugenblakrok.bandcamp.com\/album\/anima-mysterium\">Bandcamp.\u00a0<\/a><\/b><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&nbsp; Question: Is the name &#8220;Yugen Blakrok&#8221; familiar to you? Well is it? If not, then let me give you some info on \n<a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/2019\/03\/01\/review-yugen-blakrok-anima-mysterium\/\"> [...]<\/a>","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":6554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","yasr_overall_rating":4,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"Product","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[1066,1305,1306,518,503,1307,18,1304],"class_list":["post-6553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-album","tag-anima-mysterium","tag-dark-wave","tag-experimental-hip-hop","tag-hip-hop","tag-i-o-t-records","tag-review","tag-yugen-blakrok"],"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":false,"span_bottom":false},"number_of_votes":0,"sum_votes":0},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.surrealresolution.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/a1095563817_10.jpg?fit=1200%2C1200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8GYHU-1HH","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6553"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6599,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6553\/revisions\/6599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.surrealresolution.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}