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Live Review: LISTEN: Massive Attack x NAS

5 July 2012 | 12:00 pm | Staff Writer

NAS + Massive Attack = OMG. But I only studied general maths in high school. Best check out this mash-up yourselves...

This collaboration between MASSIVE ATTACK and superstar rapper NAS initially sounds more hip-hop than trip-hop. Say that five times fast.

But before you get your knickers in a knot and your tongue in a twist, realise that this fusion is natural, as trip and hip hop already share a down-tempo, bass-soaked bed. No stumbled utterance of the words trip, hip and hop will be meaningless in this instance.

Halfway through this epic genre-bending mash-up the bubbling trip-hop undercurrent simmering just below the surface swells to wash out the chunky beats, leaving an eerily ambient soundscape. The bad-ass bass falls away, leaving only sampled siren sounds and an unsettling pulse.

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With every listen, more of MASSIVE ATTACK's familiar syncopated, irregularly rhythmic synths can be heard. Grimily atmospheric, dark intonations of a ghost-town in the dead of night and the unique rap stylings of the divine NAS will crawl under your skin and transport you into a world of drugged debauchery and gritty glamour that only those who lived through the 90s can imagine.