Listen up and listen good. If you think you know your Hip-Hop and you are truly appreciative of uniqueness let me tell you something now; this self-dubbed “lad with a lisp” has just provided 2011 with its first honest to goodness master-class of a debut album “Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam” is a true gem. Allow me to introduce: Ghost Poet.
Drawing comparisons with Mike Skinner, partly due to a recent relocation from Coventry to London, but more so for the fact that this album is being tipped to have the same kind of impact as the Birmingham lad’s first blisteringly creative “Original Pirate Material”. Ghost Poet has announced himself in resounding fashion.
Do not be fooled by the somewhat preppy appearance of this new kid on the block. The use of beats, unrepentant originality and subtlety of lyric immediately draw you in and the more you listen the more you get it. Somewhat surprisingly each track has an endearing way of catching you off guard and you may have to stop yourself from singing along to a song you have never heard before. Just listen to “Cash and Carry Me Home” and tell me it doesn’t put into words that hungover feeling of dread the morning after that heavy night before.
Without going into a track by track breakdown it will suffice to say that Obaro ‘Ghostpoet’ Ejimiwe has announced himself in huge neon letters as one to watch for 2011 and beyond. Quite simply if this is a taste of things to come then we are all in for a bit of a treat. That being said one album does not a star make, more interesting will be to see how this translates to the live set; we look forward to seeing that transition.
Ghost Poet plays Dublin’s Grand Social (formerly Pravda) on March 4th.
WORDS // SEAN DOYLE // RAP IRELAND
