by Dan-O

I’m very aware that none of us read full articles anymore. We scan for the summary paragraph or speed read the gist. So here it is: often in hip hop we had the style icons on one side while the emcees who challenged our thoughts were on the other side. E-40 on one end making up new words, tones, and flows while Chuck D warned us about the dangers of a changing world in a pair of dark jeans with a Yankees cap. Cavalier brought both sides together in 2024 like Outkast before.  When I spoke to Cavalier this year I was able to express that my first reaction to Different Type Time was fear. I hoped the Backwoodz dedicated listenership who research references and share the links feel the presence of Cav’s style and wouldn’t dismiss him under the assumption that this music doesn’t have enough levels.

The ugly secret is that people who need their favorite rappers to teach them far too often assume the presence of an evocative sense of style as a flashy trick that covers up a lack of what their style deficient favorite thinker can do. I was overjoyed that Backwoodz fans en masse do not suffer this delusion. Most had heard Cav shredding tracks with Quelle Chris and were genuinely open to his Backwoodz debut. While I had been a ghost for years. Online shaking my ghost chain, pointing a crooked spirit finger and warning “Cavalier has classics! Rapped with Raekwon before you even knew who he was…” saying things at random like “Why listen to J.Cole when Cavalier exists…”

Cavalier put out two full albums where he handled all the emceeing duties, Different Type Time on Backwoodz which dropped in April and CINE with Child Actor that came out in November. In between he released the second Death Tape with Quelle Chris which functioned as a conversation between brilliant minds with reflections as unexpected as the hooks. His features throughout 2024 were so refreshing and intense that I was jumping out of my seat when I saw him guest on a song. I remember when Rich Jones sent me the advance of his album SOUR DUB with Sleep Sinatra, my eyes scanned the tracklist and song four (Cool Jerk) teamed Defcee and Cavalier I was practically giddy. The depth of his intellectual understanding of words teamed with his mission to impact mood and form on a song made it so every Cavalier feature left every album he guested on completely changed.  In a climate where some folks are dropping an album every few weeks and overfeeding the streets Cavalier dropped 3 but was everywhere we went in 2024. It was the year people started to really take in the deep rewarding richness of vision that only he can exercise.

The first rule of Cavaliers 2024 was that everything he said was important. You can get lost in the new flows, double meanings, and unique references but when I spoke to Cav he kept coming back to these characters being real people from his life, these stories shared from his memory banks. Thinking about the first song (Sojourn) on CINE as an example where he says “They gave 15 years to my first babysitter. Bout 5th grade had to explain cocaine to my baby sister. The walls didn’t talk but hissing radiators whispered.” On this journey it’s been important for Cav to have feet firmly on the ground. Think about how sparklingly literary last three words of that quoted verse. The vivid nature of what he is pulling from grounds the vast powers attained of these years of top tier emceeing. It inspires him to go even further even harder. He wants the listener to be able to touch, hear, and feel the story. The second rules is that as impactful as finding meaning is we needed to allow ourselves to enjoy the craft at hand. Gifted & Talented off CINE is a great example: “They don’t know they fast is my mundane. I ain’t want fame. They under the influence I wasn’t into it. Your two cents that’s chump change. It got a tinge to it. I’m off the porch off the wall its all sky no doors no hinge to it.” Its just COOL AF. From the opening line to the tinge of the chump change. Cavs brain fires in ways no one else can and you need to bask in the uniqueness of how these songs are formed in order to understand why he is the clear MVP. It’s a beach full of rappers making sandcastles while Cav makes a giant pirate ship.

Two songs will forever make me think of the year of Cavalier. Judy is Forever on CINE. On the surface a tribute to someone that helped him in life…but it was indicative of the conversation this year Cav spent in comprehension of what we lost from our neighborhoods, our local communities. The things we wish we had told people that shaped our lives. Judy’s love and lessons are a part of the engine that drives Cav forward. The other song is Can’t Leave Me Alone off Different Type Time. Different Type Time is even more color variation than CINE. From the crunchy off putting world of Doodoo Damien to the pulsing confessional landscape of Touchtones. I listened to it everywhere I went: on subways nodding my head, walking over train tracks in Montreal, on a balcony alone sipping something strong to remember my Dad. Every time I hear Can’t Leave Me Alone it still feels like everything I was missing in those years I was yearning for new Cavalier. Eric Jaye does a beautiful job burying a smile 6 feet deep within the hook, the patterns on display from Cav along with the imagery (“Biggies money green leather sofa”) its at the highest level. I never had to choose between music for the soul and fun music. Cav never made me choose. I got more of both than I even knew I could get and in the process of gathering all these jewels it made everyone else seem like they were working respectably hard and nailing a specific skill but they were just one color and couldn’t compete with the rainbows Cav was throwing into the sky.