This is the track that introduced me to the work of Hassaan Mackey a few years ago. Of course, the beat is what attracted me first as I heard that sample somewhere before and the drum loop is something serious, it has a live feel almost. You got this funky groove over these soft voice samples and eerie ‘quantom leap‘ type melody. My head bob was in overdrive.  Could you ask for more from a beat?

“When you hood, how you turn all of the violence off and give God the glory for your story when your lights are off?”

Once I got over the high of the production, I took a deep listen into the lyrics to see if they captured the same energy as the beat. His voice has a gritty tone to it with a flow that rode this beat so well. He describes various aspects of the ‘concrete jungle’ well with a lot of passion and energy, the subject matter is real. No complaints here, the realer the better. I easily got visuals from his descriptions; descriptive tracks like this deserve some video treatment. Bilal’s added vocals was a nice touch, I think it added even more passion to the track.

“Living within a circle that I still feel boxed in…”

I’ve heard plenty other tracks from Hassaan Mackey since then but this one always gets the most rotation in my pod. Get a listen. If anyone know this sample, let me know.

Hassaan Mackey – The Jungle (produced by Oddisee)

The Jungle Instrumental (produced by Oddisee)