oddisee

Oddisee Releases New Single “Born Before Yesterday”

The prolific Oddisee has released a new instrumental single Born Before Yesterday from his upcoming album entitled The Odd Tape, and follows on from his first release No Sugar No Cream.

Amir Elkhalifa aka Oddisee has crafted a five minute track full of jazz leanings and heavy percussion on his return. The smooth beat kicks in around a mix of warped and incomprehensible vocals before a clatter of rhythmic drums takes the song up a notch along with cymbal crashes. The song then completely breaks down as a jaunty piano line shuffles off alongside a crisp snare drum towards the end.

“My upcoming instrumental album The Odd Tape is meant to be a “Day In The Life” piece set to audio. Each track is the theme music to my routine. Born Before Yesterday takes its title from the daily proposals I receive that question intelligence in ways that only the music industry can,” the rapper and producer wrote on his Facebook page to explain the concept behind his new project.

His new album, which is set for release on May 18th, comes just a few months after he released his EP Alwasta while his follow up to the brilliant The Good Fight is also set for release later this year.

In an interview from 2013 with Okayplayer, the Washington, D.C based rapper spoke about why he found it so invigorating to make instrumental albums as opposed to full studio releases.

“I don’t really think the process differs for me too much, other than the fact I’ll take a few more liberties with the instrumental album than I would with a vocal album because on the vocal album, the lyrics are meant to be on the forefront.  And when you have no lyrics, you have that space you can fill up with other things.”

“I tend to take those liberties when I make an instrumental album and maybe use live instrumentation to do solos or interesting sequences that may not be the easiest to rhyme over,” he said.

Image: Ambrosiaforheads