Shy Guy & Drs - The Unexpected
Hip Hop in Aberdeen has been making a name for itself in recent months with Granite Emcees and now from the same stable Shy Guy & Drs. 'The Unexpected' co-produced and featuring Granite Emcees' Ekizel, is another strong effort from this city.
The album starts with the dark mood of it's intro track then straight into 'Deadly Sins' to a sound that has become a bit of a trademark for Ekizel. Using atmospheric violins and horns and samples from the film Seven sets the mood of the album.
I was a little surprised with the next track 'Tell Me Why' which sounded more upbeat. The samples used here are are not the type of hip-hop I am a massive of but I found myself being sucked in and liking this track.
We are back to a brooding track with 'Scottish Hip-Hop', the best on the album for me, using samples from Schindler's List. The lyrics talk of bringing unity in Scottish hip-hop and the fact it is growing in the right direction. While the sound is downbeat the lyrics are uplifting and inspired.
The next track continues to show Shy Guy & Drs obvious talent for writing and creating beats but are let down with 'Waiting for You', a track that uses samples from the Bryan Adams song of the same name. This just does not work for me and is up there with using Abba for samples as used by Steg G in 'Natural Selection'. Some may like this and think it's a good song but for me, It's not my taste.
Back to the good with the next few tracks and 'Life Song' and 'Unprotected', the later being about the effects of unprotected sex, being stand out songs. I have to say that, for me at the moment, some of the best hip-hop coming out of Scotland seems to come from further up north with Aberdeen and Inverness producing some shit hot tracks.
On the whole this is another great example of Scottish hip-hop and was an 'Unexpected' surprise!
Review by Chris Torres
You can purchase the album from our store.
