Recording: Emay

Artist: Emay

Song: Bakkah: The History of Humankind

Recorded at The Garrison (Wavelength SEVENTEEN – Night 3), February 19, 2017.

Emay - Bakkah: The History of Humankind

The festival's last blast saw the stage stripped of the previous night's drumkit and stacks of amps — no surprise, as this was co-presented with Silent Shout, putting the accent on electronic rhythms and just a few dance grooves. This Hamiltonian producer + MC was the night's key discovery for me — I was taken with his cerebral flow right from the start, but when he dropped a Leonard Cohen sample I was fully convinced. Although there were some bip-bap rappity-rap tracks, Emay's main mode was more in the realm of woke sleepwalking, dropping rhymes with eyes closed as if he were dreaming the lyrics as he paced up and down the stage. As the track title here implies (and on the rest of his brand new Ilah album), he's got his mind on the macro, looking at the cosmic big-picture.