Spectreview: Redveil – Niagara

Released: August 25, 2020

Hip-Hop
Jazz Rap

-LIGHT SLATE BLUE-

For a guide to the review color rating system, click here.

Who says youth is wasted on the young? Hip-hop’s capacity to illuminate the most precocious voices among us rarely fails, but it says something that the most remarkable thing about Niagara, the sophomore release from Maryland rapper Redveil, isn’t that it was recorded and released by a 16-year-old. Instead, it’s not just a good rap album but potentially a great one, so confidently assembled and so densely packed with lyrical napalm that it might give you whiplash.

The main event is clearly Redveil’s skill on the mic, although it’s easy to be sucked in immediately by some choice aesthetic decisions. Tracks like “Campbell” and “Grass” swirl with vintage jazz-soul samplings akin to the works of MIKE and Mavi, albeit in a less hazy context. Others, like the crystalline “5500” and the lush, guitar-based “Drown” recall the tender, giddy productions of Tyler, The Creator. Similarly to his 2019 debut, Bittersweet Cry, the overall feel is one of advantageous trendiness rather than a trademark sound, but the beats he’s constructed here are both immediately enjoyable and thematically congruent to the album’s easygoing mood. Mostly though, they’re a landing point for Redveil to exhibit his skills as an up-and-coming rap dynamo.

Seemingly not a moment goes by when Redveil (or one of his guests) isn’t laying down smart bars or spinning takes on today’s maelstrom of grief. Compared to his debut, which felt mired in ghostly blues and grays, Niagara radiates with a vibrant sense of positivity and purpose from the jump. On “Weight,” he treats the heaviness of living Black in America like resistance training; “Badnews” sees him circumventing negative feedback loops through sheer self-confidence; “Revolution,” meanwhile, is a blissful Sunday afternoon anchored by the aftermath of months of social upheaval. Throughout, Redveil displays a refreshing maturity that feels leaps and bounds from his work last year. It’s a serious endeavor but not overly so; it’s overtly political but not heavy; it’s aware of the heightened peril of the current moment but refusing to drown in sorrow.

Yet even where the album wades in more quotidian waters – like the flexing of “5500” and “Clench” – it’s still an engrossing listen because Redveil is simply that talented of a rapper. Barring a clunker or two, Niagara is practically free of chaff, and in “Pigeonman” it finishes on a strong, fittingly hopeful note. At the very least it’s a deft showcase of a hungry talent that’s rife with potential; in its best moments, it’s an source of desperately-needed grounding in a dire era. That it comes from such a young spirit only makes its centeredness more reassuring. Don’t miss this.

Recommended for clean guitar tones.