Still, even for its failings as a proper album, Instrumental University is still quintessential Araab, constantly walking the razor-sharp line between glimmery and ominous. So this is background music, sure, a workmanlike collection of beats that oscillates within a narrow but extremely proficient range of sound. In fact, there's a strong inverse relationship between the listenability of the instrumentals and the strength of the tracks with verses. And because there are no beats taken from real hit-hits here (the instrumental from "Salute" and the unrelenting chipmunky smack of "Rubberband Stacks" are the closest we get), Araab avoids that unsatisfied lurch of anticipation for a familiar verse that never drops.
The same sensibility is obviously behind it, but these tracks are built from a very different foundation than those found on billowy Electronic Dream. He moves from the horror-film piano chords and signature echoey screams of "1, 2, 3 Grind" to the soul-sampling, nearly Dipset-classic vibe of "Ain't Mad Acha".
#ARAABMUZIK INSTRUMENTAL FREE#
Given the fact that he's charging money for these tracks (many of which first appeared on free mixtapes), and peppering them with his increasingly annoying drop, "You are now listening to AraabMuzik," Instrumental University might seem like a self-congratulatory stopgap if the beats weren't so consistently expert and sleek. But Instrumental University sticks to a more traditional script. That's disappointing if you're still high on Clams Casino's re-imagining of what this sort of thing can be- his thick and stoned Instrumental Mixtape from last spring reinvigorated the idea of the producer as auteur instead of background figure. And while it's perfectly natural for a producer in AraabMuzik's position to make a beat tape- it's a time-honored rap tradition, after all, and he's indulged before- it's not something that fits the arc of his current upswing.Īs the cover implies, this is a release presumably aimed at beat nerds and aspiring rappers looking for tracks.
Given all of that, the timing of Instrumental University feels off. It's a serviceable sampler of harder-knocking beats cleaved off largely unmemorable recent releases from some of his most trusted collaborators- Lloyd Banks, Fabolous, Jim Jones and, of course, Dipset pals Cam'ron and Vado, among others. You'd be hard-pressed to find a producer with as much reach as a solo commodity as Araab right now. He's also booked for a Coachella slot this year, and says he's planning to release a collaborative project with equally doted-upon Harlem rapper A$AP Rocky. And he has a serious live reputation, with a unique approach to performance. AraabMuzik is a virtuoso percussionist whose instrument just happens to be an MPC pad, and longtime Dipset fans and fashionable interlopers alike elbow one another for space around his table, collectively freaking out over the physical spectacle. But it still made sense next to what came before, offering up an entrancing, self-contained sound that grabbed at dance club roots but darkened and abstracted its samples to suggest something private and intimate. The surface-beautiful Electronic Dream, for example, introduced him to a wider audience in part because it veered from the tougher-sounding beats Araab makes for rappers. In the time since AraabMuzik linked up with Dipset and pegged himself to their reemergence with the door-smashing "Salute" beat, he's become a web-2.0 model of the hip-hop producer as brand, mapping his aesthetic vision onto an array of contexts.
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