Nicolay and Kay – TIME:LINE
Hip Hop at its simplest is rhymes over beats and a hook for a chorus. At its best though, Hip Hop is poetry over production, lyricism mixed with musicianship. Nicolay and Kay’s TIME:LINE falls into the latter category.
First and foremost, TIME:LINE is an album, which is very different from a simple collection of songs. Kay creates a narrative with his verses that carries the listener through a series of stories about birth, life, passion, death, and the afterlife. Sounds deep right? Kay does get conceptual on the record, but never preachy, so you can get meaning from the words while still vibing to the flow.
Musically, the first thing you notice about TIME:LINE is how big it sounds. Not just loud though, more like complex, deep, and melodic. And yet it’s still a CD you can throw on in the Jeep, and expect the boom in the back.
Nicolay produces with a mixture of samples and live instrumentation, playing nearly all the parts himself. The songs are all very melodic, and each track leads into the next. But because Nic changes the keys of the outros to blend with those of the following intros, TIME:LINE flows more like a concept album than a DJ mix. (Producers, pay attention: these are some of the differences between beatmaking and composing.)
TIME:LINE is engaging. It’s an album you want to listen and pay attention to all the way through. In fact, we recommend you buy it on CD so you can get the full effect of all the blends and transitions. Listen to the stories and take it all in. This is what an album sounds like if you haven’t heard one in a while. This is what Hip Hop sounds like, at its best.
Buy Nicolay and Kay’s TIME:LINE at nicolaymusic.com.
Related:
Nicolay & Kay – The Gunshot
Nicolay and Kay – The Making of TIME:LINE
