Ghostpoet
Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam
Release Date: Feb 7, 2011
Genre(s): Rap, British Rap
Record label: Brownswood
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Album Review: Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam by Ghostpoet
Great, Based on 4 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
I’ll be brutally frank and honest with you, dear reader: rap and hip-hop aren’t exactly my forté. What I don’t want to do is write off an entire genre of music that is always metamorphing and has various facets of expression, but personally, I’m not much into dark twisted fantasies. I tend to gravitate towards rap that is fun, vibrant, and perhaps soulful.
Based on rating 8.0/10
Most hip-hop acts don't make debuts like Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam. Then again, Ghostpoet, who hails from the United Kingdom and raps just as much as he produces, isn't like most hip-hop acts. With his drunken, off-kilter flow and dubstep-ish beats, he handled all the elements of his debut on his lonesome. The focus here is solely on Ghostpoet's undeniable talents as both a storyteller and a producer.
Based on rating 7/10
A credible contender to take the urban poet crown following Mike Skinner's recent abdication, aptly named MC Ghostpoet's debut album, Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam's tales of contemporary British suburban life has much in common with the Streets' influential debut, whether it's the lo-fi bedsit-style production, the everyday lyrical observations, or Obaro Ejimiwe's lazy, conversational delivery. But while Original Pirate Material often laced its social commentary with a "getting ready for the weekend" fusion of two-step garage, ska, and hip-hop, the self-described "lad with a lisp with some stories to tell" appears more concerned with providing a soundtrack for the early morning after the night before. Full of ambient electronica, woozy rhythms, and languid half-asleep vocals, its ten self-produced tracks effortlessly evoke that 4 A.
Opinion: Fantastic
An early contender for 2011's finest out-of-leftfield long-players. Adam Kennedy 2011 Rarely does a British debut album forge such a fully formed, genuinely unique direction that attempts to slot it into established scenes prove almost entirely fruitless. But Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam, the full-length bow of late-20s wisdom dispenser/producer Obaro 'Ghostpoet' Ejimiwe, achieves such a feat.