CINE

Album review

One of the most common threads that's run through multiple generations, regions, and styles of hip-hop is an inclination towards the cinematic, a key element of a storytelling-heavy musical artform that can draw on celluloid inspiration ranging from Scarface to The 36th Chamber of Shaolin to Coming to America to Do the Right Thing. New Orleans-via-Brooklyn rapper Cavalier already made his mark in 2024 with the stellar Different Type Time, where he built evocative and tactile community landscapes one sharply deployed referential lyric at a time. But he pulls things into deep autobiographical focus on his team up with prolific producer Child Actor, whose own '24 itinerary provided choice beats to Different Type Time as well as Previous Industries (Service Merchandise), ELUCID (Revelator), and Armand Hammer (BLK LBL). CINE has been described by Cavalier as a "biopic," with Child Actor as his Bernard Herrmann or Quincy Jones, and that vision results in an album that scans like a lost-classic cult film seen through a VHS rip with slightly-askew tracking. The wobbly fidelity of cuts like the fuzz-guitar heat shimmer of "Dassit" and the tension-and-release neo-noir jazz of "Knight of the East" balance smeared atmospherics with potent drums, creating a time-displaced simultaneous sense of chronological distance and immersive immediacy. Cavalier's screenwriter/director/leading man roles converge into a perspective that's equally cutting and vivid whether it's directed inwards to his experience or outwards to the people and places that informed it. "Sojourn" finds him parsing his future through tarot and wondering how that reverberates against his upbringing ("they gave 15 years to my first babysitter/ by 5th grade had to explain cocaine to my baby sister"). Quelle Chris co-feature "Sword Lilies" features both frequent collaborators interrogating the psychic and physical toll of hustle culture while invoking the sweat of James Brown. And there's power and poignancy in the late-album pairing of defiant go-for-mine style flex "Gifted & Talented" and gratitude-heavy extended-family tribute "Judy Is Forever," a tandem display of both personal resilience and the people who provided a much-needed source for it. © Nate Patrin/Qobuz