J Rawls & Middle Child
Columbus, Ohio’s unparalleled producer of smooth-as-butter beats, J Rawls – responsible for the Lone Catalysts, and plush sounds like Black Star’s “Respiration” – has been getting deep into the neo-soul, and it fits the man like a velvet glove.
Witness last year’s The Essence of Soul for evidence: while recording it, J Rawls was introduced to Middle Child, a talented young soul singer from Youngstown, OH who’s been gathering attention since her early work with Riot West Entertainment. After working with her on a few tracks for Essence, Rawls realized they made an ideal collaborative team — and decided they would do a full album together.
That album, Rawls & Middle, is dropping soon (June 10) — and it’s everything you’d expect from these two.
As always, Rawls crafts effortless, creamy beats, gentle and smooth — makes it all look easy. Even when he’s rocking uptempo, as on the album’s first single, “Til the Sun Comes,” Rawls’ sound is chilled out like a breezy summer Sunday.
Middle Child balances vocal chops with a naive, playful lyrical style that complements her style nicely. Her words slip gracefully from humor to social commentary to romance. It’s hard not to share the fun she has on tracks like “Don’t Lock My Drummer Up,” which begs both police and girlfriends not to get in the way of the music. ”You can love little girls in pony tails / but if you love them wrong, you can go to jail” she snickers on one of the album’s best cuts, ”Useless” — and all the while, her humor is underscored by Rawls’ positivity on the boards. That positive emphasis can be overwhelming at times (”Music Over Madness” narrowly avoids sounding like a sermon to the neo-soul faithful), but in these grim times, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.
But what really sets the album apart is the comfort the two artists share. There’s a relaxed pace to it, which no doubt stems from their collaboarative style: Rawls and Middle spent a lot of time on the project, and some nights would just sit and share their favorite music for inspiration, letting their styles marinate together rather than rushing to record everything too hastily.
If there’s a criticism to be leveled at Rawls & Middle, it’s that the album begins to feel as though it’s repeating itself towards the end; but come on, who’s really going to complain about too much of a good thing?
