Master of chillout hip-hop Terrel Wallace aka Tall Black Guy is back with a beautiful release this week. Peace and Love is soulful and smooth and marks another step into album territory as the last track on his new LP Let’s Take A Trip.
Tall Black Guy was brought up on a combo of Jazz, Motown and early Hip-hop in his hometown of Detroit before relocating to the suburbs of Illinois where he studied for over a decade some of hip-hop’s greatest producers like; Dj Premier, J-Dilla, Madlib, Pete Rock, and Timberland. Since his debut release in 2011 ‘Water No Enemy’ (a daring and addictive flip of Fela Kuti), he has become revered for his unique take on soulful hip-hop production. The swing of the drums, the textures of the instrumentation as well as fearlessness in taking on the classics (his Soundcloud page includes flips and chops of tracks from James Brown, De La Soul and Michael Jackson) have marked him out from the crowd and attracted fans across the world, including Gilles Peterson who included him on one of his Brownswood Bubblers albums. As one of the best-kept secrets in the scene, his talent is now beginning to get the recognition it deserves. In the last 12 months he has remixed Little Dragon and been invited to take part in Jazzy Jeff’s Playlist Retreat alongside the likes of Eric Lau, James Poyser, Ali Shaheed Muhammed, Questlove and countless others.
In the words of TBG, the album is “all about taking a journey. As simple as that. Be it physical, emotional or spiritual. It’s asking and answering personal questions from myself within some of the tracks and also touching on social issues i.e. racism, inequality and privilege…that have been at the forefront of my mind over last three years.” And this closing track floats along with its ethereal vocals and saxophone loops as if to reflect a constant passage of time passing with a simple and positive final message. Many Hip-hop artists have cited John Coltrane as a lasting influence on their music and here is another tip of the hat to the jazz legend as the song’s message is affirmed with a snippet of Coltrane reciting the phrase ‘May there be peace and love and perfection throughout all creation, o God’, a famous sample that was used by Coltrane’s second wife, the American jazz pianist Alice Coltrane, in her mellow piano track The Sun.
If you’re feeling this one you can pre-order the album here which is due to be dropped on the 28th October. A dope release is on the horizon.