(label)
01 July 2015 (released)
06 October 2015
Rhawn B, an enterprising young producer, artist, engineer and founder of UDMusic Group, comes across as being business-oriented. This is a creative who has his talented fingers in every artistic pie on the table and is seeking to exploit. A college graduate, the rapper from the notorious Los Angeles County of Inglewood, CA, isn’t trying to change the game or revolutionise the craft – he’s here to profit, mostly financially. His rip-roaring, self-made album ‘Expensive Ignorance’ is a testament both to his flair and his entrepreneurialism.
Everybody who’s into popular music knows that there has been a natural growth of the kind of rap we find trendy. For most of the 90s and 00s it was East Coast rap with its reliance on sampling classic hip-hop beats and soul melodies. Nowadays, popular rap has moved into a vastly more digitally influenced age, incorporating the multi-layered fingerprint evident in the trap music that hails from the Southern United States. Since, the style has escaped those boundaries and branched out to every corner of the US and beyond and it doesn’t look like going away anytime soon. Evidently, Rhawn B feels the same way and draws directly from the punchy genre.
‘Expensive Ignorance’ is all about that bass, revelling in bumpy 808s, thick basslines and spacey synthesis. Each song produces an energy in tune with its producer’s personality making this album, essentially, a collection of ‘club bangaz’. The arrangements maintain an unassuming and clear stylistic slant representing Rhawn’s personal sound. It’s like some of The Neptunes’ early beats, especially songs like ‘Ain’t Gotta Question’ and ‘Stay in My Zone’. Whether this is an intentional choice, or just a consequence of Rhawn’s means, he runs with it and it partners up alongside his contemporary lyricism and raucous flow quite nicely.
Thematically materialistic and swaggering, ‘Expensive Ignorance’ is a fairly accomplished commercial record. It’s not the deepest content you’ll ever hear but it’s confident and entertaining. Rhawn B has a way with predicates, explicit language and West Coast colloquialisms that the kids will love because it’s delivered dynamically, promotes a Y.O.L.O lifestyle and is catchy as hell!
