What makes a Soul Supreme work differ from many is that he doesn’t go out to simply remix a track. Instead he attempts to recreate the whole song’s atmosphere which can change the dynamic of a song entirely. When he is at his best, he glows, as seen on his work on “Doonit”. Now the track has been injected with Soul Supreme’s personal groove theory and culminates to head bobbing results. The formally mellow “The Light” now has dope swagger about it as
Soul Supreme lays Common’s ode to females amongst funky ass drums and can almost be envisioned at your local juke joint. The Neptunes laced lead single “Come Close” now embodies a jazzy air to it, making it smooth and easy to digest.  When Soul Supreme attempts
to tackle the classic “I Used To Love H.E.R.” the results are equally as pleasant. Combining Common’s nasal delivery with some production that is more current, complete with an ill arrangement, it creates a life of it own. He doesn’t improve or even disrespect the original, he just adds his own flavor to the mix leaving many a hip hop head grinning ear to ear with the results.  The menacing strings and sample laid to the Sadat X assisted “1-9-9-9″ works so well
that it may not even be recognizable at first but after a few listens one can manage to appreciate what Soul Supreme has done.

     The album does hit a few snags, which are minimal to say the most.  Miss Erykah Badu’s vocals on “Love of My Life” sound a bit out of tone with Soul Supreme’s jazz tinged pianos and horns. The production behind the joint “The Sixth Sense” is just okay in comparison to the rest of the album, but these minor flaws cannot take away from Soul Supreme’s accomplishments on this album.

    What makes this such a dope release is that Soul Supreme strings his songs together in such a coherent fashion  that most albums today lack. Much less binding a plethora of material from different stages of Common’s growth with production that makes not a single song sound its age. So as the Soul Supreme train continues building steam one has to wonder how long will it be before this up and coming producer becomes the next big thing. Only time can tell but
until then we will have to hope that the kid stays in the picture long enough to lace us with another solid piece of work.

Soul Supreme is dope, no doubt, but he put the world on his shoulders like Atlas attempting to improve Nas’ best album since Illmatic and we get a bag of mixed results. God’s Son pales in comparison to Stillmatic from a vocal standpoint but even more a production standpoint. As a result, instead of tearing a musically handicapped album and improving it 10 fold (a la 9th wonder), Soul Supreme puts himself to the task of improving on production from the likes of DJ Premier and Large Professor, thus creating his own difficult mountain to climb.

Soulmatic opens your ears with a dope reprise of the title track off “Stillmatic”. Though the intro from Stillmatic was dope, this would work perfect as a b-side if it was released as a single, where Soul Supreme stamps his signature sound all over the lyricists clever wordplay. Horns and guitars are ablaze on the revamped ether, almost delivering the impact of the original. Where we get our first taste of the magic that Supreme can set forth is on the productional ho-hum that was “Got UR Self A….”, now re-freaked with a clever sped up vocal sample, breathing in it a whole new life. Incredible production like this is just what the doctor ordered. As a listener you almost completely forget this was the single that was beaten over our heads on video and radio, and we can do the unthinkable…. listen to it all over again!!! This is exactly what a remix is supposed to do and what the original should have done. A so-so reworking of “Smokin” follows (the original was so-so as well) as well as a decent construction of “You’re Da Man” but the latter fails to deliver the power that the Large Professor served up the first time around. The same could be said for “2nd Childhood”, but still is very, very dope. But when Soul Supreme attempts to swing with the big dawgs, it’s evident that he’s more or less a rookie with a bright future ahead of him, but not up to the level of marquee big ticket player yet. Soul works wonders with tracks like “Destroy & Rebuild” and “The Flyest”. Both were suffering from blahzay-blah production and put your skip track finger to work. But now you look forward to surrounding your self to the beautiful backdrops of both joints (“The Flyest” hook cannot be saved though). “One Mic” is done in the same vein as the original, creating its own landscape of adrenaline building production, but its really hard to KO the original. A bangin remix remix of “Ether” closes the album out with triumphant horns and violins.

In the end Soulmatic is a success, introducing those of you who don’t know to the soundscapes of the new kid on the rise Soul Supreme. But where God’s Stepson dunked and 9th wonder put his nuts all in the mouth of the original, Soul Supreme has to pull off a graceful fingerroll over the extended arms of the Shaquille O’Neal of Nas’ albums in recent years. Not quite the impact of a thunderous dunk, but still putting two on the board - and points are what matters, right? So Nas, if you’re out there, do yourself and your true fans a favor by enlisting the young prodigies on the rise. Bless us with the album we have been waiting for. Are you listening? I know we are…..

Many of the tracks on Breaking Records contain conscious messages, or topics, which predominantly deal with the growing pains that accompanies the growth process of most twenty-something’s; exemplified by “Minimum Wage” featuring the Juggaknots’ Breezly Brewin, where the crew flips the “trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents” mentality, but keeps their hustle legal and “Ballad of Lost Friends” which touches on the dissolution of childhood friendships. 

Though the mix between jazzy beats and neo-conscious rhyming is at times disconcerting, Zavi and Koncept blaze the title track, “Breaking Records” w/ Infamous MC and Kirby Dominant and the effort is further bolstered by guest shots from Pumpkinhead (“Take Cover!”), Breezly Brewin (“Minimum Wage”), Percee-P (“Lung-Collapsing Lyrics II”) and another contribution from Juggaknots’ Slim on “I Stay Busy”.

In short, Breaking Records is an homage to all the heads that grew up on Large Professor, Tribe Called Quest, and De La Soul, and the ones that no matter how much hip-hop has changed, can still be found digging in the crates nearly a decade later.  While the crew’s over-ambitious nature (twenty-plus tracks) generates some unneeded filler, Soul Purpose’s hearts and minds are in the right place.

    After a brief stint of keyboard beat popularity, sampling has come back to the forefront via producers Kanye West and Just Blaze, and still remains favored in the underground with new comers like RJD2 and 9th Wonder. And if it’s sampled beats made with a brother’s love that the people want, than Soul Supreme is definitely next in line with The Saturday Night Agenda. Tracks like “Queen (Hip Hop)” or “TSNA (The Saturday Nite Agenda)”, with Pete Rock and A.G.  will take heads back to that time when hip-hop seemed so simple, bringing back those voices we haven’t heard on wax for seemingly such a long time, over production that speaks the same language. 

      But those same nostalgic feelings that are brought back with the old pros are also instantly embedded in your subconscious in songs by the newer Boston upstarts as well, thanks to Soul Supreme who speaks through his beats. “Still Searchin”, featuring Reks and Noel is a somewhat typical “dedication to moms / middle finger to pops” type of jam, but Soul Supreme orchestrated this joint to death, bringing true emotion to Reks’ words. Peep the relaxing horns of “Security”, as Shuman silences all fake hardcore emcees, or “Respect Life”, a reflective gem where the members of Electric Company each speak their own life experiences in hip-hop. Even newcomer Checkmark holds his own next to the Big Daddy on “Come Get It”: “I told ya’ll / when I get in the game / I’m taking over / baking soda / get it crackin’ when you mix me with Kane”. Edo. G should be proud.

      However, Soul Supreme’s official debut isn’t completely flawless; the intro joint “Future Flavors” sounds a little bit too much like that “Forgot To Be Your Lover” sample used by Dilated Peoples, Chino XL, Ludacris, and M.O.P., among others, whether it’s the same sample or not. And we’ve heard better tracks by O.C. (“Worst Nightmare”) and KRS-ONE (“The Message”) than what is here, but considering Soul Supreme is already set to lend his beats to both of their respective full-length releases for Grit Records, it isn’t too late for him to show and prove. 

    The mistakes are few and far in between on The Saturday Night Agenda, and as one of the most tightly knit, well produced compilations to come along in a minute, both Soul Supreme and Grit Records have proven themselves as ones to watch in 2003 and beyond. Don’t sleep on Saturday Night.