Music Review // Noveliss & Dixon Hill "Book of Changes" (Soul Records / Fatbeats)

https://noveliss.bandcamp.com/album/book-of-changes

The sound of Noveliss & Dixon Hill can be described as hip hop, but I feel like in the year 2021 a lot of what can be described as hip hop has been lost.   There exists a certain style of music which calls itself hip hop and is on the radio.  I have nothing against that particular style, it just doesn't feel the same when people are saying J. Cole is the best rapper ever and they've never heard of KRS-One before.  

"Book of Changes" has vibes like Das Efx and A Tribe Called Quest.  It's chill beats and just really sounds like something I would have listened to back in the 1990's on cassette or even in the early 2000's when I was really getting into artists like Nas.  In a more modern sense there is some Gym Class Heroes in here but it just doesn't have too many modern comparisons (outside of the Han'Solo label) as they just don't seem to make hip hop like this anymore.  It's all turned into what you hear on the radio.

While these lyrics can get deep and you can pull out lines that are meaningful, I particularly enjoy that every once in a while you'll hear something that is along the lines of what I'm into and I feel is a bit nerdy.  Subtle hints at things and just name-dropping Wrestlemania are there, but on the song "Loss for Words" there are also a few lines detailing when Cobra Commander was replaced by Serpentor and that just hit too close to home for me.

From start to finish, you don't have to skip a single track on this album.  The more that I listen to it, the more that I love it and find those little things to pull out and piece together, forming an overall satisfaction I haven't felt in music in quite some time.   "Book of Changes" is in itself a remarkable work of hip hop that many young fans of the genre have not heard the likes of before, but the way that they splice in these nerdy references, as a nerd, really makes it that much more remarkable.