“What’s good about a dream if you aint give it legs” raps Seattle’s Eddy P in the stealth track “They Need Me”. The song is from the proudly independent hip hop artist’s latest EP. While the project doesn’t have a title, Eddy P’s artistic stamp is evident in each of the five tracks. Title or not, Eddy P is adding his name to one of indie rap/hip hop’s top emcees. These songs are worth coming back to more and more.
According to his official biography, Eddy P is originally from Oakland, California. When he moved to Seattle, Washington in 2000, he engrossed himself into the local hip hop scene. Several songs later, he’s planning on adding to his album arsenal the Fall of 2020. In the meantime these five tracks will more than suffice.
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The first few tracks “I Luv My Block” and “Letters” are quite different in scope, but at their core, they both have rich, live instrumentation. The overall vibe is very chill, but I found myself more lost in the words than the actual beats. “Letters” is the better song of the two, but “I Luv My Block” has an arresting electric guitar that just sings. The guitar is completely unexpected and rips through the song. Great stuff.
“Letters” gives the listener a unique vantage point to Eddy P. I felt like this song is a direct line to his diary. He’s writing letters to his younger self, I think, and he’s going through the list of people he’s lost or even people in his life that have impacted him.
“Natty Gurl” is quite the trip! I loved it! “Looking for the real ones, you know they hard to find, give me a regular chick working 9-5” Eddy P raps. The chorus “natty gurl come and put it on me, natty gurl come and get to know me, natty girl look at your such a cold piece turn around and show me” just had me grooving. I liked his tale and I thought his commentary on women that get breast implants, Botox and all that jazz are not what he has in mind.
The last two tracks, “Snowglobe” and “They Need Me” gave even more insight into Eddy P as a person and as an artist. The theme of “Snowglobe” is that the police are the ones putting black males and black Americans inside snow globes – shaking up their lives and even dropping them in pieces. Unfortunately, this isn’t a new concept and it’s likely one that will not stop for many years. He raps “reality woke me up and said come with me Eddie P, you in the snow globe”. I felt pissed, sad, infuriated and calm all-at-once.
In “They Need Me” Eddy P delivers that fantastic line “what’s good about a dream if you aint give it legs”. This track made me want to devour Eddy P’s catalog. Truly, his style isn’t the most unique, and he certainly produces great music, but his words are phenomenal. I think that he’s saying in this song is that while a lot of people are looking to him, depending on him, he needs them too, but he’s strong enough and disciplined enough to stand up and be a man.
Garth Thomas