New Music – Amerikkkan Zombie

“What has America done for me, nothing… but made me a zombie,” describes the sample used on Nvsv’s 2020 release, What Have YOU Done. The opening track acts as a mirror that is not so much a broken reflection, but instead a cracking apparition that moves to cover the shouts and calls of mistreatment under the great American flag.

Seeing the opening track, “What Have YOU Done For ME” unfold like a budding but foreboding flower, Nvsv is a collective of cognitive raps over spaced-out production. He holds this microphone that dangles loose chords around his wrist, his rhyme flow appears on “Pick-Up” with a catchy hook and almost psychedelic guitar and percussive combination. The strings that wash over the listener like a mighty, but warming wave are accompanied as he describes, “Once I was feeling so blue, now I am sipping on red red, all of them feelings are dead dead, all of them feelings all of them feelings are…” His voice trails off as he begins his first verse which is a shifting, but still stuck in the mud thematic caress through the gentle production.

Never is there a moment where Nvsv feels out of control on What Have YOU Done, even in his most dazed performances that follow like on “Aston Martin Luther King” where the stutter-step instrumentation is lost in time. Almost as if he was a ship at sea, Nvsv commands direction but is seemingly comfortable amongst the uneasiness. His delivery is clean, and ties that into his writing where he describes, “I might pull up clean, I might pull up clean, Aston Martin Luther King. I once had a dream in the garden, Icarus I’m falling, nigga watch ya wings.” Even as the sun begins to melt away his stabilized movement, he never falls within Death’s reach, but instead is able to slide through the crowd of misery effortlessly.

Nvsv ultimately is not just completely in this stoned state and trades his distant and cold delivery for something more lively like on “2phonenigga” which is one of the strongest tracks through the jazz-infused production. The little horn waltz is generous to the record and seems to create something that is more abrasive without the anger. It is a summer-filled display for a drawn-out winter that desperately needs some joy. As he rhymes over these simple boom-snap percussive sways, his melody on “2phonenigga” is a shortened cast that reels in to bring a prize.

One of the last moments spent on What Have YOU Done takes a dive into these samples of children describing how society in America was not built for the black man or any man that does not have the complexation for the protection. Once that curtain dawns and the smoke disappears, Nvsv thankfully hops back into the driver’s seat with another 15-tracks added to the loopholes of his belt.

Listen To What Have YOU Done Here!!! – BandCamp/Spotify/iTunes