Blended Babies, Chuck Inglish are mellow in out-of-body 'Ev Zepplin' experience
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By Alex Dionisio
Experimental Chicago production duo Blended Babies (JP + Rich Gains) and Cool Kids producer/rapper Chuck Inglish (Evan Ingersoll), also from Chicago though he was born in Michigan, have put their minds and dope together for the laid-back, casual Ev Zepplin album (April 29, BBMG Media), a ten-track, collaboration-heavy LP utilizing classic rock and psychedelic music plus other sounds and cool styled-out wordplay by Chuck, who mainly serves as an emcee on the project, and his guests. If hip-hop is in or has been heading toward a hippie mind state, then Ev Zepplin affirms the situation and/or trend, as Chuck, JP and Rich huff clouds of smoke and puff pounds of cloud rap with a variety of nuances and subtle differences that will keep fans focused throughout all the records.
Nathan Santos and Jordis Unga join in on "We On" to talk rocker-talk about getting to the top and reaching new heights to old style rock 'n' roll, and then Alex Wiley and Caleb James rap about getting some pay, some honeys and being the man over hums, piano and snare in "Over Much." Aston Matthews tags along in "Chemdream" for some mellow paper-chasing, and a trio of features made up of Asher Roth, Boldy James and Major Myjah are young, wild, free, opportunistic and hungry in "Tokyo Keys" to buzzing guitar licks. Chuck then takes the reins and does his thing without help in the middle song "Scenic Route," to rap suave man raps and more. You may not think this is much of anything important, but the draw is not so much in the subject matter but rather in the music and the emcee personalities. The rappers do employ some tricky delivery techniques but not often. They're almost all slow, low and easygoing. Again, the draw is in the character and style of the individual participants.
We get some love and attraction vibes in both "Re-Creating" and "What I Want" featuring drea.smith and Jade Hurtado, respectively, as the sweet sounds of these ladies singing compliment Chuck Inglish's fine emcee-rhymes. That college-lover turned hip-hopper Asher Roth then returns two more times, first to spread some hip vibes under the influence in "Hang Ups" and second, to spit some bad-boy-ism in "Gun." "Light This Fa Me," the most thuggish track here, features video-game-like doom scene music and appearances from Boldy James once again and Buddy. Ev Zepplin is a chill factory and primarily makes for a lot of cocky confidence thanks to the young hip-hop artists on staff. The members are not necessarily grown-up serious, but they are serious in tacitly stating through the music that they're gonna make fun, youthful rap music with plenty of musical style and artistic decision-making. Chuck, the Blended Babies and their friends have a right to rejoice in this fairly solid yet stolid achievement of theirs.
