Team Dynamite – Respect The Process
(Years Gone By)
Reviewed by Sam Smith.
It has been a long time between drinks for Auckland hip hop group Team Dynamite. Their last album aptly titled Never Again came out in 2015 and many, including themselves, had given up on the possibility of another album coming out. Thankfully, though, due to hard work and a labour of love, their third album Respect the Process has finally arrived and all in all is an excellent comeback.
Released on Tom Scott’s Years Gone By label, Respect the Process is a boom bap-esque rap record full of jazz and soul samples, crisp beats, and the usual Dynamite vocal swagger laid down by MC’s Lucky Lance and Tony Teez. If anything, this sound is in keeping with the legacy of YGB and the chilled out hip hop of acts such as Home Brew, Eno x Dirty and @Peace.
Teez and Lance’s interwoven MC work dominates across the ten tracks with the soul rap of “Gladys Knight” and jazzy album closer “Goodbye” especially good. The Dynamite boys also bring star power to proceedings with Bailey Wiley, Louis Baker and Diggy Dupe all featuring and all delivering on “Lighting Bolt”, “Dragon Fruit” and “Who?” respectively.
Connecting all this together into a perfectly formed whole is the beat master that is Haz’ Beats. Haz’s fingerprints are all over this record with his beat making and superb use of samples giving the music that chilled out feel that YGB has long been known for.
Haz is one of the central characters of YGB and his production work has appeared on the music of many rap and R&B acts over the last ten years. His work on Respect the Process is some of his best yet and reconfirms why he is one of the most in-demand producers in New Zealand.
Five years is a long time in music, especially in New Zealand, and in many ways, the hip hop scene has moved along from the heady days of Young, Gifted & Broke. However, with this album, Team Dynamite have dropped a timely reminder of why they were so good for so long and why after all these years they still have the ability to drop top quality music, despite a hiatus.
Whether this is it for them remains to be seen. It certainly would be a good marker to go out on. And no one would begrudge them this exit given their service. However, something tells me they are just getting their mojo back and as a result still have much to offer the local scene here in Aotearoa, a scene that owes them a great deal of debt.
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