boerd – Queen City Sounds and Art

Boko Yout and boerd (R-L), photo courtesy the artists

Boko Yout and boerd team up again for “Sooky Sooky,” a downtempo hip-hop song that expresses a nuanced and emotional complexity in word and its deeply evocative music. Boko Yout’s distinctive soulful vocals shift in and out of various styles of processing that lend shadings of resonance that complement the vocalist’s already rich tonal range as he seems to experience the feelings in real time of heartbreak and trying to understand what happened in a relationship that is experiencing some turmoil. The line “Sooky Sooky let me down/never let me go” gets to that place in your heart where you would rather someone let you down because that’s human and everyone does it but wanting to keep a special connection going. In the rest of the song we hear a voice weary of misunderstandings and conflict and of being sad but left with feelings of compassion and affection that remain. Throughout the song there is a spare guitar line and a touch of piano that closes out the song on a hopeful, upward note. Listen to “Sooky Sooky” on Spotify and follow the multi-faceted songwriter and singer Boko Yout at the links below. The new Boko Yout and boerd EP Griot released on March 15, 2024.

Boko Yout on TikTok

Boko Yout on Instagram

Listening to “All My Life,” the lead single from the soulfully evocative debut collaborative EP Griot by Swedish producers and songwriters boerd and Boko Yout (out as of January 12, 2024 via boerd’s Blunda imprint) and its dusky atmospheric tones and textural downtempo rhythms you hear the kind of thing that might have happened had Tricky and Massive Attack worked together after the release of Mezzanine. It’s a song with themes of self-involvement and escapism and how in pursuing something that feels meaningful with your life’s work you can stay emotionally stunted by having to grind in performative fashion. As an artist that means you might lose yourself trying to please people through asserting your self importance in chasing perceived creative breakthroughs in trying to continually prove yourself. But in the song’s lyrics we hear the words of the narrator’s mother, and as it turns out that of Boko Youth aka Paul Adamah himself, advice to stay grounded and thus connected to your authentic self rather than one processed and filtered through fickle and shifting expectations. The spectral, lingering organ melody just below the accented percussion and expertly executed flourishes of vinyl scratching definitely hits that mode the founders of trip-hop hit that expresses so well a reflective mood conducive to releasing the angst of modern life. It’s a sound that helped to humanize electronic music and with the vocals here it’s a vibe that hits deep. With this collaboration that classic sound gets a subtle production and aesthetic update that feels fresh. Listen to “All My Life” on Spotify and follow boerd at the links below.