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Forum nameThe Lesson
Topic subjectJean Grae & Quelle Chris - Everything's Fine (new album)
Topic URLhttp://board.okayplayer.com/okp.php?az=show_topic&forum=5&topic_id=3003308
3003308, Jean Grae & Quelle Chris - Everything's Fine (new album)
Posted by Boogie Stimuli, Fri Mar-30-18 08:51 AM
https://quellechris360.bandcamp.com/album/everythings-fine

Long time collaborators, got married in Dec. of '17 and dropped this really cool album.

What I really like about this album is that it has a very different sound without losing sacrificing soul, headnod, knock, etc.

I fux widit.
3003309, Already can't get "Waiting For The Moon" off repeat
Posted by Boogie Stimuli, Fri Mar-30-18 09:01 AM
3003357, ^
Posted by kinetic94761180, Fri Mar-30-18 08:46 PM
this stood out to me, too.
3003919, good to hear MosEl on this also.
Posted by liveguy, Tue Apr-10-18 08:57 PM
shit DOPE!
3003315, Shit. Forgot to cop this before I left for work.
Posted by mrhood75, Fri Mar-30-18 12:41 PM
I'll do so soon as I get home.
3003356, listened to this 3 times earlier today-
Posted by kinetic94761180, Fri Mar-30-18 08:46 PM
this is great work.

great concept, great production, great album.

great great great.
3003370, It's dope
Posted by viagramakesmeimpotent, Sat Mar-31-18 10:28 PM
House Call Bangs!!!!!
3003371, House Call bangs indeed... that's gonna rattle the trunk
Posted by Boogie Stimuli, Sat Mar-31-18 11:21 PM
I was thinking that sounds like if Prince was a Hip Hop producer
3003372, Prince would had some pseudonym like
Posted by viagramakesmeimpotent, Sat Mar-31-18 11:33 PM
Lil' P from the Purple City
3003374, Haha
Posted by Boogie Stimuli, Sun Apr-01-18 12:29 AM
>Lil' P from the Purple City


He woulda been the 5 Foot Freak long before Phife

3003377, Zero is my jam today
Posted by Boogie Stimuli, Sun Apr-01-18 03:38 AM
3003386, ok Breakfast of Champions is some real shit
Posted by Boogie Stimuli, Sun Apr-01-18 04:21 AM
Love the concept and execution
3003387, This project is beyond brilliant. It might take a minute for it to click...
Posted by Boogie Stimuli, Sun Apr-01-18 04:49 AM
some time for it all to sink in, because this is a super thoughtful work... very deserving of the support. We don't get albums like this everyday. I'd go on, but their description right there on bandcamp says it better than I can.
I'll paste it here:

"When you hear the phrase, “everything’s fine,” we immediately understand it as emotional shorthand. In daily life, we depend on those perfunctory clichés (hope all is well, good to hear from you, etc.) to spare ourselves from the psychological unpacking that the truth requires. For that, there’s art. For that, there’s Everything’s Fine from Jean Grae and Quelle Chris, a jagged, acerbic odyssey that brilliantly riffs on this dystopian zeitgeist.

The thing is, anyone without a lobotomy and a toxic red hat understands that things are definitely not fine. The crush of modern anxiety, the late capitalist scramble to survive, and the brain warp rot of social media has left most of us half crazy.

“We have a dickhead for a president, and before our eyes, racial, religious, and sexual identity rights are moving backwards,” says New York’s (by way of Detroit) Quelle Chris. “Money is still a thing (I’m waiting for Star Trek life to start). There’s war, your kids may be sick, but if someone randomly asks "how's it going?" most people will say "fine."

Released on Mello Music Group, this album replaces that reflexive cliché with honest and eloquent tangents. It’s specific and subtle in its execution, achieving equilibrium between lackadaisical detours to smell the flowers and the frantic acknowledgement that there’s an inferno raging outside.

If the great political albums are often grim polemics, Everything’s Fine achieves its goals partially through withering satire. See the opening skit, a Prince Paul-style game show in which three contestants (including a futuristic robot) numbly croak that everyone’s fine despite flying high on every imaginable drug, crying themselves to sleep at night and being unemployed for a decade and a half despite having a Master’s in Fine Arts. I promise it’s much funnier than it reads off a screen.

“We’re both perfectionists in different ways,” Jean Grae describes their working relationship. “We both see huge pictures and concepts. So while listening, pay attention to the subtleties, the nuances, the dissonance and the harmony. The conversations and pieces of ourselves in the words, the flows, the beats. All of the open spaces. .Be uncomfortable and be okay with that. Be layered and be okay with that. Be angry and be okay.”

It’s rare to find a record where two rappers are so seamlessly intertwined. Yes, that’s partially a by-product of the teamwork that goes into being in any normal relationship where you wake, sleep, and dream together. But the album also bears the hallmarks of two singular creative geniuses trading bars, collaborating on beats, and combining fun with internal therapy and external observations. It features indelible cameos from Denmark Vessey, Grammy Award winner Anna Wise, Your Old Droog and Big Tone, as well as comics Ashok “Dap” Kondabolu, Michael Che, Nick Offerman, and Hannibal Burress.

In the streaming era, we tend to naturally overlook albums that require multiple listens. This is a record that will grab you on first listen, but it’s greatness only reveals itself through its careful construction, slick wordplay, and esoteric allusions.

On “Zero,” Jean artfully references Rachmaninoff and The Donner Party in the first two bars. With “Scoop A Dirt,” she name-drops the Babadook alongside the truth bomb that Friends was little more than a whitewashed rip off off Living Single. Meanwhile, Quelle balances boasts about bags of cash the size of Chris Christie with poignant existential laments. Somewhere in between, Jean will stealthily slip in jewels like, “it took me until my 30s just to put my finger on it, once you accept the knowledge/solace doesn’t follow/honest.”

It’s a record with only a couple antecedents: De La Soul is Dead, Organized Konfusion’s Stress: The Extinction Agenda, Blackstar, and maybe Cannibal Ox’s Cold Vein. Yet it doesn't sound remotely like any of them. It’s spontaneous and free, yet refined and meticulous. Even if everything is abject, it’s a reminder that music can transcend.

“This album is full of our minds. Our hearts. Our love for production, and words. flow and a lot of musicality,” Jeans says. “We don’t approach topics, issues, writing, or making beats in the same way. I’m harsh, blunt, quick, technical, I arrange classically and play more than I sample. I make joints with 80 tracks. I’m layers upon layers upon layers. Quelle is patient, he’s kinder. More loose and minimalistic. He makes sounds work together that shouldn’t fucking work. How? I have no idea. These are dreams within dreams.”
3003469, This album is bananas...
Posted by ChampD1012, Mon Apr-02-18 06:59 AM
3003491, I don't have much to say about great albums
Posted by stone_phalanges, Mon Apr-02-18 01:13 PM
Which is kinda sad I guess. I feel like what can I say that the album doesn't say better in the music. I hope people buy this album.
3003513, RE: Jean Grae & Quelle Chris - Everything's Fine (new album)
Posted by spidey, Mon Apr-02-18 08:08 PM
Diggin it...this year continues to impress music wise...two times through, and want more...
3003514, brilliant
Posted by Kosa12, Mon Apr-02-18 10:42 PM
3003518, On first listen, this is really good.
Posted by mrhood75, Tue Apr-03-18 01:13 AM
It's Quelle's best since "Ghost At the Finish Line" and probably the best album that Jean has ever been involved in. Both the lyrics and the production are excellent. Like how it starts out, production-wise, classic trippy Quelle since, then gets more melodic with the last two tracks.

I'll be bumping this a lot more in the coming months.
3003545, Love it!
Posted by Damali, Tue Apr-03-18 01:51 PM
3003591, It got Best New Music from Pitchfork
Posted by stylez dainty, Wed Apr-04-18 04:05 PM
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/jean-grae-quelle-chris-everythings-fine/

I hope this gets the album more exposure. I think this is a really special album in hip hop. A thoughtful, musically adventurous album put out by two rappers married to each other. Has that happened before?
3003892, Well PF got that one right... well deserved honor for Jean & Chris
Posted by Boogie Stimuli, Tue Apr-10-18 01:07 PM
3004011, RE: It got Best New Music from Pitchfork
Posted by Original Juice, Thu Apr-12-18 12:43 PM
A thoughtful, musically
>adventurous album put out by two rappers married to each
>other. Has that happened before?

G&D (Georgia Anne Muldrow & Dudley Perkins) have had a few albums together; however, they are a little more all over the place musically than this.. and I don't think they are actually married, more like domestic partners.
3004013, Ahh. Forgot about them.
Posted by stylez dainty, Thu Apr-12-18 12:57 PM
I think they've even done stuff for MMG, too.
3003848, Incredible. And a good reminder of how
Posted by Stadiq, Mon Apr-09-18 07:09 PM

Dope Jean is. I kinda stopped checking.

**sidenote- i always thought talib and Jean should
have mad a joint album....like back when
Blacksmith first came to be**

Anyway, amazing album.

This is my favorite Quelle project since NIM too


This is like...the dopest album I didn’t know I
wanted...sh!t needed.

3003902, I Like Jean Grae But...
Posted by Dj Joey Joe, Tue Apr-10-18 02:43 PM
...I'm not feeling Quelle or the vibe of this album at all, it's on some weird anticon/rhymesayers vibe, I'm always down for some Kool Keith weirdness but it's like they didn't try to make an album but abstract compilation of tunes laying around.

I tried to get thru the album, took a while, I kept skipping from track to track after a verse or two, Jean is spitting something while Quelle is spitting nothingness, sometimes he sounds like Madlib rapping while other times he sounds like Danny Brown rapping but either way not feeling it; but the guest features are good sometimes to turn me in the right direction.

Overall now that I finished listening to it, I'll never listen to it ever again.


3004437, I share your feelings 100%.
Posted by Brew, Tue Apr-24-18 09:02 AM
I felt like I was forcing myself to like it for the most part, out of respect for Jean. But I was getting the exact same impressions related to the tone and vibe of the album ... just a weird feel and nothing that ever got me excited. I appreciate what they were going for but it just did nothing for me. Too weird.


>...I'm not feeling Quelle or the vibe of this album at all,
>it's on some weird anticon/rhymesayers vibe, I'm always down
>for some Kool Keith weirdness but it's like they didn't try to
>make an album but abstract compilation of tunes laying around.
>
>
>I tried to get thru the album, took a while, I kept skipping
>from track to track after a verse or two, Jean is spitting
>something while Quelle is spitting nothingness, sometimes he
>sounds like Madlib rapping while other times he sounds like
>Danny Brown rapping but either way not feeling it; but the
>guest features are good sometimes to turn me in the right
>direction.
>
>Overall now that I finished listening to it, I'll never listen
>to it ever again.
3003918, Joint banging front to back
Posted by liveguy, Tue Apr-10-18 08:56 PM
Jean is SPITTING and Chris is being Chris, a few steps upward.

High quality joint.
3004077, Zero (official video) **flames**
Posted by Boogie Stimuli, Fri Apr-13-18 02:52 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBNPPEUWE1U
3004093, this song and video are hard as fuck, man
Posted by Dstl1, Fri Apr-13-18 07:35 PM
.
3004097, Word. Pretty impressive that Quelle taught himself to program 8-bit
Posted by Boogie Stimuli, Sat Apr-14-18 03:17 AM
video games over two months just to make the video as well.
3004136, amazing
Posted by Damali, Sun Apr-15-18 07:20 PM
3004090, This album is so fucn good. Weird. Pertinent. Original
Posted by astralblak, Fri Apr-13-18 06:52 PM
Simply really digging it.

Jean Grae kills this whole shit.

It's up there with Milk's album for me
3004091, WHUT WHUT!!
Posted by imcvspl, Fri Apr-13-18 07:10 PM

█▆▇▅▇█▇▆▄▁▃
Big PEMFin H & z's
"I ain't no entertainer, and ain't trying to be one. I am 1 thing, a musician." � Miles

"When the music stops he falls back in the abyss."
3004120, My boy said Quelle was the weak link
Posted by stone_phalanges, Sun Apr-15-18 09:30 AM
I goes without saying that I was very surprised by this...but now I can't stop thinking about it. I find myself thinking 'I know this sounds dope, but is it really dope?'-like parsing every line to check and whatnot. It's stupid, but I can't stop doing it.
3004122, I don't know about Quelle being the weak link
Posted by Nick Has a Problem...Seriously, Sun Apr-15-18 10:57 AM
but Grae is the better emcee. Nothing wrong with that. He did his thing too
3004130, this
Posted by astralblak, Sun Apr-15-18 02:14 PM
.
3004159, Grae might be the better emcee, but Quelle is the better musical artist
Posted by mashpg89, Mon Apr-16-18 10:15 AM
He has an elite ability to construct unique, cohesive albums.

NIM
GATFL
BYIGIWICBYMO

all of those are better than anything Jean Grae has put out. Gonna listen to this new one tonight but I won't be suprised if Jean outspits him. No doubt he brings the album together though.
3004149, Quelle is probably the backbone of this project. n/m
Posted by A Love Supreme, Mon Apr-16-18 07:19 AM
.
3004391, This joint is locked in...
Posted by TR808, Mon Apr-23-18 12:24 PM
I havent listened to anything else for a week....


hannibal actually sound like he could spit if he really tried..lol


Jean Grae is so underated... OMG!!!!!!!


3004392, So this is very much the best album of the year thus far
Posted by mrhood75, Mon Apr-23-18 01:04 PM
Just great chemistry lyrically and musically. Bump it all the damn time.

I guess my favorite joints are "Gold Purple Orange," "Breakfast of Champions," "Scoop of Dirt," and "River." But "Waiting on the Moon," "Zero," and "Ohsh" are also amazing. Same with "House Call," which sounds like something off of Redman's second album. That's high praise.

3004433, Czaface Meets Metalface for me
Posted by stone_phalanges, Tue Apr-24-18 08:34 AM
But I do love this album too.
3004416, The last song ('River') is breathtaking
Posted by Orbit_Established, Mon Apr-23-18 08:08 PM

I still gotta feel out the whole album but sheesh
that last track

----------------------------



O_E: "Acts like an asshole and posts with imperial disdain"




"I ORBITs the solar system, listenin..."

(C)Keith Murray, "
3005053, i couldn't get with this
Posted by mista k5, Fri May-11-18 03:10 PM
finally gave it a listen and it was hard to get through for me. im not familiar with Quelle Chris' work so I didn't know what to expect.

I like Jean but sonically this was not something i could get into.

I'll give it another listen, seems like im the only one that didn't enjoy it.