Album Review: N.W.S.E

Most people know that I really enjoy hip-hop. The history and the details about how it emerged fascinated me when I was about 16 years old. Before that, rock music was my go to. Yet, something drew me in.

Meet Mic Sure and Lacroix from Dunedin. On the new album N.W.S.E they produce and create some of the best old school hip hop I recently heard. For example, on the second track When I Turn, the string line out the right speaker feels like something straight out of crate digging and finding a great simple sample to build around. Layer on top of that a catchy cadence during the chorus ‘M to the I to the C to the S. U to the R to the E to the chest’, it reminds me of the sort of East Coast influenced style I grew up listening to but with a NZ sound that is authentic and real. The mixing is fantastic, especially during the verse on this track. It seems saturated and slightly distorted, just like you would find on an old school mixtape of rap artists that were trying to get signed and known.

Each track has its own unique flavour which feels like a nod to the different styles of hip-hop and rap that we have all come to love and respect. With the sped up vocal sample used in It’s You, or the big samples that are looped to create vibes from early 90’s Wu-Tang and all that East Coast style, both MC’s jump on the mic and deliver excellent performances that feel live and captured like they really need to be. And an MC should be able to jump on the mic and let the flow take over in order to allow them to deliver verse at quick fire speed, rhythmically sound, and all still while having a focus lyrically. All of these qualities are found here, with different cadences and techniques with mixing used on each track. For example, on tracks like One More Thing and Autumn Nights the beats feel more west coast influenced with a more boom-bap style. I would also say I can hear a lot of NZ influence here too such as David Dallas and Deceptikonz.

On the track Keeping It Raw, they invite other MCs, Freddie Bish and Scapegoat Mercy and it feels like an old-school jam where they pass around the mic, spitting bars with their own unique delivery style capturing their rap personas. The beat is reminiscent again of some of the East Coast artists like Jurassic 5, and at times over the album I’m reminded of Coast Contra.

And on Autumn Nights as the beat starts I can’t help but feel again like I am listening to some 90’s West Coast rap from something Deathrow Records would have been producing. Joined this time with ShouldBsweet and Big Guts Billy, these two tracks remind me of that big West and East coast battle sound that, if these guys are around my age, we would have been reading about and listening to in the mid 90’s. In all cases, I hear moments like this on the album as hat nods to these artists that inspired and influenced them. I can definitely hear it, and I really enjoy it.

There isn’t much to find about Mic Sure and Lacroix online at the moment. It was limited, but that shouldn’t matter. By the time you get to the track Corner Of My Brain, you know that their passion for hip-hop is real. By this stage in the album, you understand what they say in their bio on Muzic.NZ.

‘A couple of dads who have never let go of their passion for making Hip-Hop. These humble heroes are here to send your heads back to the golden era. Mic Sure and Lacroix have no real expectations but make the music because they love it and cannot stop.’

A great album, even if only coming in at just over 24 minutes.