Rhyme Schemes Overseas

Karriem Riggins “Bahia Dreamin'”

Instrumental hip-hop is such an odd space – a logical and satisfying presentation for a lot of musical ideas that might otherwise need to compete with a rapper for your attention, but also vaguely unsatisfying as your ear is trained to expect to hear a rapper rapping. For every DJ Shadow or Prefuse 73 track that stands out as a powerful and thoughtfully composed piece of music, there’s a bunch of interesting beats that make you nod and go “huh, [some rapper you like] would sound great over this.”

Karriem Riggins’ Headnod Suite can sometimes veer into the latter category, but his best compositions have a rhythmic and harmonic density that’s emotionally resonant and a bit too busy to pair with vocals. The main hook in “Bahia Dreamin’” is a call-and-response between a slightly clipped up keyboard riff and wordless vocals, but within two minutes the rhythmic thread holding it all together is unraveled, tangled, and unwound again while some odd bass notes and unexpectedly lovely piano melodies fill in the more chaotic moments. It’s just barely over two minutes, but it’s a flood of good ideas.

Buy it from Amazon.

Matt Martians “Alotta Women/Useless”

Speaking of instrumental hip-hop, this song by Matt Martians could just be a loop of the beat and that slightly distorted keyboard hook and I would be perfectly happy. But Martians keeps the track moving through two minutes of he said/she raid rap verses and a couple runs through a chorus before flipping the beat entirely. The “Useless” section is more overtly funky and melodic, spinning through busier keyboard parts and vocal melodies while the “Alotta Women” section was mostly static on an instrumental level. I like this diptych structure – this could easily be cut up into discrete tracks, but keeping it this way deepens either side by suggesting a parallel narrative and a more complicated set of emotions.

Buy it from Amazon.

Note: I’m posting these two songs together because I sorta accidentally discovered that they sound fantastic back to back, as if the Riggins track was always meant to transition into the Martians tune. Try it yourself.