There Is Only Now, the sixth album from legendary hip-hop group Souls of Mischief, is a cinematic crime tale of love, loss, and revenge. A conceptual collaboration with producer Adrian Younge and the first release on his freshly-launched Linear Labs Records label, the album serves as a bookend to two decades of music since the release of the group’s seminal debut album, ‘93 Til Infinity.
 
Set in 1994, There Is Only Now draws its inspiration from a near-fatal shooting involving group members A+, Opio, Tajai, and Phesto as they were reaching new levels of success early in their careers. Struggling with the volatile combination of newfound fame and the proliferation of gun violence in their native Oakland, the crew parlays the energy from the incident to weave a new tale altogether. As complex as the arrangements and rhymes, the narrative that unfolds is one of unrequited love that spins into lives of the Souls crew. After Tajai is kidnapped, we’re led through a labyrinth of anecdotes and insights into the love triangle of Womack, the thugged out villain; Stoney, herb on the come up; and Miriam, the object of their affections.
 
There Is Only Now sees the Souls of Mischief crew trading bars with a cast of classic hip-hop and soul luminaries. Narrated by A Tribe Called Quest member Ali Shaheed Muhammad, the album reveals itself under his watchful eye as DJ for fictional local Oakland radio station K-NOW. Busta Rhymes makes an appearance as the story’s villain, Womack, on “Womack’s Lament,” while William Hart of the legendary vocal soul group, The Delfonics, lends his buttery falsetto to the contemplative “Another Side of You.” Snoop Dogg drops knowledge on the situation between Stoney and Womack with an ice cold verse on the title track “There Is Only Now,” and Scarub from Living Legends goes in on “Stone Cold.”
 
From the Black Jazz stylings of “Ghetto Superhero” to the hectic JB’s-influenced “Green Eyed Monster,” the album showcases Souls of Mischief’s classic flows refreshed over Younge’s trademark sound. Swirling organs, heavy drums, and soaring strings provide a lush backdrop for the Souls crew to trade rhymes like jazz soloists. Younge elaborates, “I wanted to make an album that was like Native Tongues meets Souls of Mischief meets Herbie Hancock and Bob James. I wanted them to be like four horns, so each person is a separate horn player in, for lack of a better term, this hip-hop jazz production.”
 
Fortunate enough to work with his favorite hip-hop group of all time, Younge jumped at the opportunity to create a truly collaborative project that found everyone together in his Los Angeles studio. Drawing on their strength as a quartet, Souls of Mischief circumvent traditional rap song structure and find their inspiration in the unlikely source of sixties soul harmony groups. Marveling at Younge’s unique approach to the production, the emcees felt obliged to step up their game on the lyrical end.
 
Souls of Mischief and Adrian Younge have created a hip-hop album unlike any other. The result of a special moment for all involved, both parties feel the album represents the best work of their careers. There Is Only Now proves that after two decades in the rap game, hip-hop’s Fab Four remains committed to the expansion of their legacy as pioneers and innovators of hip-hop.
 
Bio written by Andre Torres
 
Photo credit The Artform Studio

Adrian Younge is the next generation of soul music. A self-taught musician and recording engineer who has dedicated his life to the study of classic soul music, Younge finds himself at the center of a new soul renaissance with a vision for pushing the boundaries of the music itself.
 
The story begins in 1998 as the budding hip-hop producer found himself confined by the limitations of the MPC. He began teaching himself how to play various instruments so he could fully realize his vision. First it was keyboards, then drums, sax, guitar, and bass. Fascinated with the sounds of Italian soundtracks by the likes of Ennio Morricone, Younge begins work on the soundtrack to the fictional film Venice Dawn, recording the album intermittently over the course of the next year. What developed was a sound that is equal parts Morricone and Air. Self-released in 2000, the moody, synth-drenched album was entirely composed, arranged, played, and recorded by Younge.
 
Eight years later in 2008, Younge would find himself at the center of the Black Dynamite zeitgeist. Instrumental in the film’s development, Younge not only edited the film, but also composed the original score, which was hailed as a modern blaxploitation masterpiece for authentically capturing the cinematic soul of the 1970s, from Isaac Hayes to Curtis Mayfield. The album was released by Wax Poetics Records. Adrian Younge solidified himself as a force to be reckoned with and soon went to work writing music for the forthcoming Black Dynamite cartoon series on Adult Swim.
 
His next solo project, Something About April on Wax Poetics Records, Younge envisioned a new sound that would revisit his earlier, more baroque instrumental work of Venice Dawn and mesh it with the deep, gritty soul of Black Dynamite, eventually deciding to bring everything full circle by releasing the material under the moniker Venice Dawn. It is a heavy, dark mix of psychedelic soul and cinematic instrumentals with hip-hop aesthetics, touching on influences from Morricone to King Crimson, Portishead to the Flamingos, Wu-Tang to Otis Redding. Two songs—”Sirens” and ”Reverie”—were sampled by Timbaland for Jay-Z’s Magna Carta… Holy Grail, respectively on the lead single “Picasso Baby” and “Heaven,” which features Justin Timberlake.
 
In spring of 2013, Younge released Adrian Younge Presents the Delfonics (Wax Poetics Records), cowritten with William Hart, founding singer of the legendary soul group; as well as Adrian Younge Presents Twelve Reasons to Die, a concept album with Ghostface Killah on RZA’s new imprint, Soul Temple. He and his band, Venice Dawn, toured to support the Ghostface album.
 
Younge has recently completed Souls of Mischief’s There Is Only Now, and is currently working on follow ups to Ghostface Killah’s Twelve Reasons To Die and Venice Dawn’s Something About April. A new project with A Tribe Called Quest alumni Ali Shaheed Muhammed, The Midnight Hour: One Night in Harlem, 1971 sees the duo creating music that ATCQ would have sampled had these records existed decades ago. “I’m a modern soul artist who, as a hip-hop head, is always making music he hopes will get sampled,” Younge adds.
New collaborations with Bilal, Raphael Saadiq, Common, No ID, and DJ Premier are also in the works for future release.
 
With Lyor Cohen coming on in a management position and having recently inked a deal with Sony/ATV Publishing, Younge is poised for the big leagues. Both parties have been instrumental in forging relationships with today’s top artists with the sole goal of making good music, confident his sound is the next big thing.
 
“I aspire to be the modern day Quincy Jones. I consider myself a composer, not a beatmaker. Beatmakers make ten beats in a day, I try to make one good beat every two or three days,” Younge acknowledges.
A love child of the Wax Poetics aesthetic, Adrian Younge’s time has come.
 
Bio written by Andre Torres
 

Photo credit The Artform Studio

DJ/Producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad is a hip-hop icon. As one-third of legendary hip-hop group A Tribe Called Quest, his influence and impact on the musical landscape is still felt today. The soft-spoken and contemplative Brooklyn native began a life of music at an early age, spending years DJing parties in his Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood before co-founding Tribe in 1985. The group’s socially conscious lyrics and unique production style heavy on ‘60s and ’70s jazz, funk, and rock samples sound as innovative today as they did two decades ago.
 
Muhammad carried that classic sound into the production unit The Ummah with Jay Dilla and Q-Tip, and continued working with artists including Faith Evans, Mos Def, D’Angelo. In 1999, he co-founded the Grammy nominated all-star trio Lucy Pearl with Dawn Robinson, formerly of En Vogue, and Raphael Saadiq, of Tony! Toni! Toné! The group’s organic and sexy fusion of funk, rock, R&B, and hip-hop revealed Muhammad’s growing musical maturity.
 
After Lucy Pearl, Muhammad focused his attention on his production company and developing new talent. In 2004, he released the very personal and adventurous solo debut LP Shaheedulah and Stereotypes, featuring some of his new proteges. Steadily working on material for a follow-up solo album, Muhammad set up a studio with Martin “Doc” McKinney of Esthero and Weeknd fame a few years later and continued writing and collaborating with other artists as well.
 
Last year, Muhammad received an invitation from Adrian Younge to work on fellow Golden Era legends Souls of Mischief’s There Is Only Now project. He narrated the album, playing a DJ for fictional local Oakland radio station K-NOW, while providing background music to accompany the narration. The results were impressive enough to ignite a creative burst in the two producers that quickly produced an album’s worth of material in a matter of weeks. Muhammad shares his thoughts on Younge, “He’s such an easy person to work with, he has such vision when it comes to music. We really get each other, and that’s the other fun part of creating and finding a partner you’re on the same wavelength with.”
 
Excited to support the There Is Only Now album, Muhammad got to work on a ten-track remix album that carefully re-imagines the original. Looking for a different mix and sound, Muhammad shares, “I wanted to make it as emotional and moving as the original compositions. So even though it’s a remix, it has the feeling of an original work. But bringing something else to the sound.”
 
As Muhammad and Younge ready their debut collaborative effort, their musical bond only grows stronger. The duo’s studied and immersive brand of hip-hop brings both a sense of musicianship to the genre, and a DJ sensibility to contemporary music making. The sound is a sophisticated blend of Muhammad’s warm jazz-inflected chord progressions and Younge’s heavy psych-drenched soul leanings that brings jazz, hip-hop, and soul into this century. With appearances including Marsha Ambrosius, Bilal, and Cee Lo, the album is slated for release later this year. In the meantime, Muhammad continues to share his musical vision with the world on remixes by the likes of Broken Bells and Maroon 5, and performing as a DJ around the globe.
 
Bio written by Andre Torres
 
Photo credit The Artform Studio