Words by Josh Abraham.
Photography // Elo Kay – press.
Danish rapper, Elo Kay is back with a glorious debut album that was promised when his lead single ‘Ghost’ was released, but now the curtains are open for the world to see and hear his story. Now the fourteen track production has dropped, it’s clear to see that the talented artist has quite the story to tell. When you include the experimental beats as well as the narrative of gratitude, dealing with racism and living in different countries, it’s a whirlwind of emotions that combine perfectly.
Tracks such as ‘Mama Told Me’ show the pain and love of his parents’ sacrifice to help him in life and it is truly felt here. Creativity simply pours out of this track with lines such as ‘Mama working two jobs, just to get me Steve Jobs, apples falling from a tree, daddy used to work hard, granny used to pray hard blessing me from the start’.
Each track knows it’s place within the album, it ebbs and flows to the point where the personal touches such as the rapper’s mother making an appearance in the albums namesake ‘Village By The Woods’ brings a tear to the eye. The listener can hear a phone conversation between the two as the track comes to its conclusion.
This body of work contains something special, it’s able to use real life situations such as the death of George Floyd to discuss systemic racism in ‘Rebel’ as well as using the track ‘Euphoria’ to delve into his feelings on if taking the knee before a football match to say no to racism is actually working.
One thing is for sure, Elo Kay is here to stay and is here to keep bringing communities of people together from all around the world.
