As he prepares to drop his self-titled debut album July 14, Mura Masa keeps confounding expectations of what to expect. His knob-twisting handiwork draws from hip-hop, electronic grooves, House, and R&B, pushed toward experimentation that erases genre boundary lines. His new single and video, “All Around the World,” finds him collaborating with hip-hop’s most ebullient rapper, Desiigner, for a track both soothing and exhilarating.
Masa’s studio handiwork creates aural dreamscapes that alternately and sometime simultaneously make you shake your ass and/or fall into a meditative state. (The two are, of course, far from mutually exclusive.) Though the lyrics to his songs veer toward uplift/catharsis, he also uses the voices of his collaborators (Charli XCX, A$AP Rocky, Shura, Nao) as tools to manipulate for greater emotional and sonic impact. Desiigner’s gruff yet joyful voice is used here in such a way to underscore the whiff of blue melancholy in play, creating a mesmerizing tension as the track works its magic on you.
Top image courtesy Nicholas Hunt/Getty Images.
