My Album Of The Week for the week of December 9th-15th, 2013
Allan Kingdom - Talk To Strangers
Talk To Strangers is another album that I downloaded after checking out Erik Thompson's excellent 10 Twin Cities Acts Who Deserve To Be Famous column. Though, I should note that this wasn't the first time I'd come across Allan Kingdom's name, it was the first time it was the first time I said, "Oh yeah, I gotta check that out." Thanks to Erik Thompson (or his editors) for putting the link to Kingdom's Bandcamp page in the column.
I'm excited to spend the week with Talk To Strangers because, frankly, I need to hear more new voices in the Twin Cities hip-hop community (and I say that with all the love possible for the old voices I've been listening to for years).
After a couple of spins, Talk To Strangers makes for an interesting listen because Kingdom doesn't seem to be straining himself to fit in with the hipster set, which is refreshing, but he's also not presenting any sort of myth-building version of himself. Honestly, he just sounds like a dude who's rapping over some laid back beats because it's fun to just kick back and rap over some laid back beats. Definitely a welcome change of pace.
If you're interested in checking Kingdom out in person, he's part of a lengthy list of artists playing First Avenue on Saturday, February 15th for the release of the 5th The Best Love Is Free compilation. Gotta believe that's a show worth checking out.
