Jahari Massamba Unit - YHWH Is Love (Album Review)
Tuesday, 19 March 2024
Written by Jack Butler-Terry
Photo: Jimel Primm
It used to be that a simple genre tag would give you a clear idea of what an album or artist sounds like, but with all the advancements and innovations that have been made over the years, they can be quite restrictive. Take Madlib and Karriem Riggins’ collaborative project Jahari Massamba Unit, for instance. When they released their debut record — 2020’s ‘Pardon My French’ — they opted for the term ‘Black classical music’ because the ‘jazz’ label that the industry favoured just didn't do the work justice.
Fast forward to today, and little has changed. Their new album ‘YHWH Is LOVE’ visits everything from jazz and soul to amapiano, afrobeats and hip hop. It is a wide-ranging and moving celebration of Black music propelled by Riggins’ percussive prowess and polished by Madlib’s expert production.
Rubato Love introduces the album with shimmering keys and ethereal synths, before Stomping Gamay drills a fidgeting flute melody into your brain. Later on, keys crash like thunder while Riggins’ drumming is thrust into the spotlight on Karriem’s Bolero.
This is an album that flows freely and wildly, like all good jazz does, but in a way that doesn't feel distracting or busy. It's certainly a more cohesive experience than ‘Pardon My French’ — while that record was a tangled web that could overpower and confound, their second outing manages to be both more complex and more digestible all at once.
What ‘YHWH Is Love’ does best of all though is translocate the listener through space and time. Whether it's the smoky New Orleans bar setting of Massamba Afundance or the classy 1940s New York cocktail joint that ALL THINGS might inhabit, Jahari Massamba Unit manages to create both an easy-listening experience that could soundtrack your day to day and a blissful form of escapism. A step up in every way, ‘YHWH Is LOVE’ is proof that two masters of their craft can accentuate and complement each other without jostling for centre stage.
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