Save this article to read it later.
Find this story in your accountsSaved for Latersection.
This months new visual albumWhen I Get Homeunites these interdisciplinary exercises like a lodestone.
Its not a new idea.
Its an act of reclamation.
It elevates art from our real past and present by appreciating it without stigma.
Its a lucid dream about freedom.
When I Get Homes music pursues the same aims.
It honors the history of Houston hip-hop by using it as a vehicle for a voyage into strange locales.
It flows like a production by DJ Screw, full of familiar sounds warped into barely recognizable forms.
It also moves like 70s jazz and New Age records and 60s processed tape compositions.
The synths feel unpredictable and alive.
The words tumble out in evocative phrases and collide in disorienting repetitions.
They float as dreamlike sequences of comforting images.
Hip-hop heads of a certain age will find it scratches the same itch Doom and MadlibsMadvillainydid.
Both albums are offbeat structures made from short, evocative song fragments.
This music is offbeat, but not without precedent.
Its strange, but never forbiddingly so.
The Stevie parallel is almost too rich.
When I Get Homeis most certainlynot SolangesLife of Plants.
It isnt a detour or an experiment.
It isnt the past being mirrored or repeated.
It feels like something entirely new is happening.
It feels like the themes Solange has been exploring outside of her music are finally trickling down into it.
(Compartmentalizing is work.
Its soul music that doesnt tell you what to feel.
Its the answer to the old Funkadelic question: Who says a jazz band cant play dance music?
