WeLoveYourSongs Page: http://weloveyoursongs.com/artist/4460/Kristjan
I love going international with these things. This week, we're traveling to Latvia with Hip-Hop/Rap artist Kristjan. The bio on his page gives a description of a "philosophical rapper/producer." He's got two albums under his belt, recorded in Latvian, and has been a part of the country's local scene for about five years. Particularly, he has been a part of the Latvian hip hop movement, Intelligent Recordings.
The next sentence sort of has me thrown off: "His musical career started in his childhood in 2001." In 2001, I was in middle school.. what does he consider a childhood? And we don't really get the good "stay in school" message here, because at 16, he left school and appears under his stage name "Kristians" as a hardcore rapper. The rest of the bio reads as someone who basically could not make a break in any way shape or form, but kept on recording. Most recently I guess, he switched to rapping in English.
I apologize ahead of time if this winds up being a short one, but let's see what we get out of a listen, eh?
"Enough of This" is one of the three tracks offered up on Kristjan's WLYS page, and I have to say - I'm surprised, pleasantly, by the production work that went into this. It's definitely done through a computer, but what isn't these days? There's a loop in the background that doesn't hurt the song at all. The rapping sounds much more mature, vocally, than I expected. The message is even pretty good - focusing on the good instead of the bad. Okay, well, we may be on to something here after all.
In a weird Evanescence-meets-Eminem move, we get "Mystic." The female vocals being sung in what I guess should be labeled the chorus, is straight out of a horror house (and not in the cool Amy Lee way). The overall approach to the song is pretty simple and straight-forward, it's jus not altogether appealing. At least it's a little different from the first song - variety's always nice.
"De Ja Vu" is the last song on the WLYS page, and this leans more toward the R&B side of rap than the others have. It's also the first time that Kristjan's accent is a little more prevalent. The song's pretty steady from start to end, though nothing terribly striking here to make me say "wow." Okay, wait, I take that part back - the speed at which he's rapping, allowing us to still understand what he's saying - that makes this a little better than others I've heard.
So, Kristjan, it was real. I didn't hate the music itself, but am not quite sure what to thing. I'd say, give this guy a chance at least once. You'll either enjoy and want to hear more, or you'll be content, as I am, and glad to know something new for a few minutes.