Mixtape Review-One Long Day by SonReal

by Dan-O

The best example of how needy/high stakes and fascinating SonReal music is comes on the song LA off his new mixtape One Long Day. The gentle piano gives way to our narrator suffering writers block and going on a drive. He gets pulled over, gets a ticket and goes to get lunch. Don’t worry he tells what he gets for lunch, brings it back to the studio and suffers more writers block until a friend tells him to go home. All of a sudden the chorus crashes, the voices double, the hook hypnotizes and you realize this is his stadium jam. The song where all the hands clap, sing along, and hold up their cellphones…and it’s partially about picking up lunch. He’s got such a deeply abiding sense of his own sincerity that he’s willing to give you the oddest moments; like on this same song when he admits to feeling like he got punked by the cop ticketing him.

I’ve listened to all SonReal projects out of this overwhelming fascination. He can rap at different tempos and write a great chorus but that isn’t it. I suppose that One Long Day along with his other projects could be called Emo rap but it’s usually a lot more serious. While the Nothing Interlude is a great example of heartbreakingly emotional relationship exploration this is also a dude who said “Who’d have ever thought we’d do a thang, I was listenin’ to Wu-a Tang…” on Honor Roll and knew exactly how silly it was.

Part of the difference between One Long Day and previous projects is that this production is remarkable all the way through. This wasn’t as simple as sticking with the hot hand of a great producer; the project is 11 tracks long with 8 different producers. Each one brings to the table his own style with one pre-qualifier. It’s gotta be big. Every beat needs to hold the spotlight on its narrator while providing us with reason to keep watching.

Throughout the project SonReal makes sure you understand that he doesn’t rap about molly or haters or anything generic that’s out in the public. He doesn’t rap about violence or drug dealing because he’s doing his best not to betray his artistic character. That’s a notable part of One Long Day but I wouldn’t want it to be negatively defined as a counter to “mixtapes of the day.” It’s more than that. It’s a Canadian kid spitting about his life as he sees it over hip hop’s version of the Springsteen wall of sound. It’s not something you can listen too all the time and it probably doesn’t fit a genre anyone likes, which might be its greatest asset. When you get sick of aimless braggadocio you might get the chorus from Monday Night (P.S. Kardinal Offishall has an astounding verse on this track. Great collaboration) stuck in your head and hear Son’s lilting voice “I was gonna write something for radio to play but f__k it all I had to say was ‘love me because I’m real” and you’ll need what he provides cause awkward honesty sometimes sounds better than convenient conventions of the day.

Stream or Download One Long Day below:
http://www.datpiff.com/SonReal-One-Long-Day-mixtape.572027.html