The cloth the “Hip-Hop” producer is cut from has expanded and mutated infinitely since the bumpin’ days of the 808, no longer bound by simplistic hand-claps or repeated Skull Snaps renditions (although when freaked properly will always prove successful), what we know to be the “Hip-Hop” producer has engulfed all that is music, both past a present. Like their forefathers, they ingest their individual influences and then reinterpret them on to the listening public, these days freaked and flipped (in regards to what is “dope”) to the highest degree. LA’s Nobody acts as the unseen sage in the midst of dusty breaks and rich samples, and the almost 70 minute Soulmates is both a testament to his talent as a Hip-Hop producer as well as to the future of this next generation of beat makers and track layers. A generation to be considered as musicians with samples rather than simply cats with drum machines.

Rich basslines and hearty drums are bountiful throughout Soulmates; tracks like “Leading To The One” and “Sixth Sense” simmer in their bump leading the listener through hypnotic escapades. “Syde Tryps” flirts with a smoky dub sound as “Tone Therapy” provides a psychedelic head nod that’s hard to resist. While the lyrical appearances are scant they prove to be spent well nonetheless. Freestyle Fellowship style well on the previously released “Planets Ain’t Aligned”, but the best collaboration between producer and emcee goes to “Shades Of Orange” featuring Of Mexican Descent’s 2Mex. Proving to be highly underrated in delivery and lyricism, 2Mex slides along Nobody’s melodious (yet not melodramatic) bump creating a masterful song. Notably, Abstract Rude’s help on “Inner Eye” and Aceyalone’s appearance on “Faces Of The Deep” glimmer in a dusty nostalgia of early Fat Jack/Project Blowed collaborations.

To unaware listeners you might think you’re revisiting old LA underground demos while soaking in , but this ain’t old stuff it’s the creation of something new while returning to the ethics and practices of music’s past. Nobody’s got beats yo, but he’s also got soul and along with a small few he’s contributing to the piecing together of a new Hip-Hop cloth, something too rich for MTV yet easily accessible to the versed head.