If you are already familiar with the Californian pair, TiRon & Ayomari – or at least TiRon and his culinary-themed LPs, then you have probably been anticipating the release of ‘A Sucker For Pumps’ for quite some time! If you have been living in a soundproof cupboard under the stairs, have terrible music taste or are just a little…late then you are about to experience some extreme “dopeness”. ‘A Sucker For Pumps’ is the latest in a long stream of high-quality, much-loved LPs and has features from BJ The Chicago Kid, Yummy Bingham, Captain is Cool, Iman Omari, D.R.U.G.S & Thundercat. Here I pick my 3 favourite tracks (which was a difficult task) and explain why I strongly believe that ‘A Sucker For Pumps’ is a classic. I’m already on my third day of listening to this album for over 5 hours straight, I just can’t get enough! And how often does that happen?
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Have you ever come across something before, be it a restaurant, a TV show, a pair of trainers, a book…or in this case an album, that you feel like you have to put everyone on? Last week I took part in some research for a major clothing brand and I was asked “What makes something a classic?” – after lot’s of stumbling and half-finished sentences, I answered that a classic is something where upon initial discovery you experience an unexplainable feeling – it’s a mix of excitement and pride – and it makes you certain that that item is worthy. Worthy of being talked about and worthy of being worn/played/read repeatedly. I explained that a classic is something that has elements of both history and the future within it, elements that allow you to escape the present everytime you wear/listen/read it. Anyway enough of the branding speak, I should probably copyright that shit! “A Sucker for Pumps” is all of the above packaged into a 14 track LP available on both iTunes and Bandcamp for $7.99, which is like £5. TiRon & Ayomari’s release came at the perfect time for me. I write for my own Hip Hop-centred blog (musicshewrote) and in all honesty, I was getting a little bored of the latest Hip Hop releases. I wanted something that would excite me in the same way The Weeknd’s first release did. I honestly think that the House of Balloons is the last time I banged out the same LP all day, and that was in March.
A “Sucker for Pumps” opens with a track titled Jack Kerouac which is like a romantic version of “On the Road”, the novel which tells the tale of Kerouac and his Beat Generation companions as they hitchhiked across 1950′s America. The track consists of both Ayomari and Tiron with rap verses talking about lost loves and the sticky relationships we manage to get ourselves tangled in during our youth. The chorus is where the reference to Jack Kerouac comes into play, Tiron’s spacey vocals give an account of the baggage we can’t help but carry from previous relationships and our yearning for somebody who will spare some time and compassion to help share the load, and help us on our way. The relationships you go through before you meet “the one”(?) are described as a hitchhike journey through romance…I like that.
The Neighbours just might be my favourite song on the LP. You may want to listen to this through your headphones, or at least refrain from blaring it out of your work computers speakers. Crammed full of sexual narrative, The Neighbours is a playful, mischievous, raunchy track where Tiron asks his lover to turn it up so the neighbours can hear; the sound effects of a woman reaching her climax in the background is like the cherry on top of a devilish cake! Reading my description for this song you’d probably expect a heavy basslined R.Kelly sex ballad with the water-drip sample and falsetto bridges, however The Neighbours is very representative of the artist’s home city, California – laid-back, mellow and hot!
A Sucker For Pumps is an album for women. Not in the romantic, Boyz II Men kinda way. Maybe I should say songs about women, but then you’d assume TiRon & Ayomari spend 14 tracks moaning about women with attitude, an obsession with fake Louis V and bad weave. They don’t. I’d Rather is a Hip Hop song about a chaotic, passionate warfare with equal measures of love and hate and a good example for what I’m failing to explain above above. Think Blame Game with adlibs, Californian steeze and an R&B chorus.
I know I said that I’d only pick three songs, but the 11th track on Sucker For Pumps isn’t really a song. Remember the third verse at the end of Kanye West’s Blame Game written by poet Chloe Mitchell – well it’s kind of like that. Dream Hampton equipped with beautiful intonation and an incredible bibliography and filmography under her belt (Decoded, Black Book, Behind The Music: The Notorious B.I.G. and I Am Ali) vocalises an almost essay on this penultimate track. I say essay because it consists of a beginning, middle and an ending: “Though counter-intuitive when driving, curves require acceleration. Fear and braking de-rail. The same with love shit. In the end we all want love. And like Pablo Nerudaonce said ‘I pace around hungry sniffing the twilight hunting for you’. Men truly have a hard time ending a thing. That’s why God gave women shoes”. If this piece of work doesn’t touch you and I don’t see your Blackberry/Twitter/Facebook status change to a quote from Denouement after listening to it – well I give up….you need your ears/brain/heart tested.
A Sucker For Pumps is available for download on iTunes for $7.99 or you can stream via Bandcamp for free!
About Tara
Music discoverer, explorer and lover! I enjoy traveling, politics, film and all things creative! Follow me on Twitter for rants, food & Hip Hop and check out my other blog!