Katie Kate can literally do it all. Her self-produced sophomore album has so many different styles that it will have you wondering if you are still listening to the same artist or if your iTunes accidentally shuffled to something else.<\/p>\n
The Seattle rapper\/singer\/producer\u2019s top three influences are Weezer, Elliott Smith, and Atmosphere. She tells listeners that\u00a0they helped her learn to structure music, write lyrics, and rap her feelings.<\/p>\n
In the first song of the album \u201cThe Visions\u201d she spits out lyrics to fast moving synth chords, but in \u201cRushmore\u201d she raps “I am a mountain face, with a tree line \/ You want to cross me, I got tall pines,\u201d and follows it by singing a sweet chorus: \u201cI am set in stone\/I am Rushmore,\u201d all to a sparse drum line, not adding more sounds till halfway through the song. The sharp rap and melodic chorus is her way of delivering the message \u201cI can’t help but be who I am, how I am.\u201d<\/p>\n
I absolutely love \u201cDrift\u201d: moody and low-toned raps with a retro melody and trippy hook, making a great cruising (or drifting) song. The track \u201cSadie Hawkins\u201d was released as a single before the album, and sticks out of the album with its fresh but poppy beat and vocals. Her creative use of instruments and mixed vocals reminds me of St. Vincent. The best thing about this song is the sweet lyrics \u201cI\u2019m going to Sadie Hawkins you\/ You won\u2019t even know what to do.” I don\u2019t think it\u2019s possible to dislike this song.The album finishes with \u201cRazorblade Fences\u201d, a mix of echoing vocals and snippets of rap to a fun steel drum beat.<\/p>\n
The varying and well-placed sounds of this album make it an interesting listen that doesn\u2019t ever get boring or heavy, and showcases Katie\u2019s talent to not only make music, but also to market herself.<\/p>\n
Recommended if you like:\u00a0K. Flay, Santigold, and Uffie<\/p>\n
Recommended tracks: “Rushmore,” “Drift,” and “Sadie Hawkins”<\/p>\n
Reviewed by Margaret Jacobs on October 16, 2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Katie Kate can literally do it all. Her self-produced sophomore album has so many different styles that it will have you wondering if you are still listening to the same artist or if your iTunes accidentally shuffled to something else. The Seattle rapper\/singer\/producer\u2019s top three influences are Weezer, Elliott Smith, and Atmosphere. She tells listeners that\u00a0they helped her learn to structure music, write lyrics, and rap her feelings. In the first song of the album \u201cThe Visions\u201d she spits out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":31986,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182,3230],"tags":[2371,2370,2372],"class_list":["post-31985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hip-hopelectronic-rotation","category-new-music-rotation","tag-katie-kate","tag-margaret-jacobs","tag-nation"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/KatieKateVert.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}