ALBUM REVIEW: Delinquent Society - Detour
Hip-hop’s meteoric rise in the nation in the past few years has certainly paved the way for other rappers to break out of the mainstream and give way for many other styles in the genre. Save me the long speech but after writing for Scout’s Magazine column a month ago, there was one thing I felt after writing about this hip-hop group and that feeling was that I was missing out on other acts outside of the metro. I’ve seen young and upcoming rappers on soundcloud but most of them happen to be based somewhere beside the city that I’m living in or it just doesn’t count as something as enjoyable or refreshing.
Recently, I have been scouring the entire internet and its local music landscape hoping to see something promising outside of our 619.2km sized vicinity. "The metro isn’t enough", I say to myself. "How about the ones that are making some noise outside of it? One hopeful day in the month of July, I was very busy organizing my partner’s benefit show but what caught my attention in my free time is a Davao City based hip-hop quartet called Delinquent Society.
Delinquent Society is a hip-hop group from Davao City. The group consists of Fusr, Contemplate, Audible Lecter, and Mellow Marc. They have been releasing their tracks through Soundcloud and have recently released their first album titled “Detour” in other digital music platforms worldwide.
Intense hype aside, they’ve been making rounds online and it’s about time to listen to their latest album. I sat down on my desktop, opened my browser and searched for their album. Their presence in the intro, “Skip This Track”, was felt throughout the verses in which the four emcees painted a picture of their own characteristics; a braggadacious, hopeless, and often have a contemplative character that all of the rappers are fleshing out in one song. “No Visa” came in next featuring a Korean rapper called HANZM who happens to live in Mindanao. The third track was something to turn up the sound system for, and I love it. The fourth track “Tommy Dreamer” was a track about loneliness while Aud is showing his crooner side with autotune. Thankfully they didn’t sound like they were butchering the autotune element; “Tommy Dreamer”, conceptually, was appropriate for them to show their singing side.
“No Balance”, featuring Calix, has this futuristic production with the synths and at the same time the hook is great to sing along to since the theme revolves around posers and chanting hooks that are all about getting money where in reality they have zero balance. Following “No Balance” is another track satirizing the rich kid culture, a track titled “SWAY” is really tight. All of the four emcees did a great job at telling a story about the current state of streetwear.
“Chico” and “Feelings” share the contemporary r&b style with wavy vocals and choruses that talk about hanging out with the friends you trust so much. These two tracks shared a great chemistry, they both share a great sequence of consistency of verses that actually made Delinquent Society look like they’re an absolute unit in the mic.
“The Four Horsemen” is a track that animates the four horsemen of the apocalypse in fantastic fashion. The production here reminds me of “Scenario” by A Tribe Called Quest. The way the four rappers traded bar per bar and how they contributed in bringing fever and death in their land. This has got to be one of their most cohesive track in the entire album, it singled out almost one of my favourite tracks here.
“Stuck in Traffic” and “Versatile” are the plainest tracks here, they almost bring the substance in the tracks but I kinda felt like the energy is lacking in it. The lyrical jousting in this track is present but maybe this was just another filler track. The production in “Versatile” is great but sometimes the overall starpower is completely lacking, making the only notable verses in the two tracks are Fusr and Contemplate.
“WAITING4DAGREENLIGHT” has that gritty feel to it. The homage of horrorcore rap is back here. “Brakes” which is the last spoken track in the album was a great closer. It was laid back and it wasn’t really in-your-face unlike the majority of the project. This was a very relaxed and hazy closer.
Delinquent Society comes through with a surprisingly good debut here in “Detour”. This record is somehow a gateway for hip-hop listeners outside of the metro. I personally thought that they have the flow, the songwriting, and the charisma. Although there are some verses that are samey and convey the same braggy tone except for some tracks that are really great in creating a story or a theme. Being an English spoken record, it sounded decent for casual listeners but the variety of each track was over our heads and it exceeded our expectations. I’m sure that these guys are really moving it in the hip-hop scene in Mindanao and I’m looking forward to see more of that in the future.
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