BLK ODYSSY's ‘DIAMONDS & FREAKS’ is a Meditative Study of Textural Breadth and Immersive Discourse
Evan Dale // June 10, 2023
“Why don’t you tell them about your addictions?”
Diamonds & Freaks. It’s as simple as that. But really the answer is one bleeding with multitudes of tragedy, coping mechanisms, and ultimate rebirth. The material and sexual are common escapes for a lot of people, but particularly for artists, especially those emerging with gusto from the floorboards of the relative underground, whisked into a life change they always wanted, but could never have really been prepared for. For Juwan Elcock, this album is much more than one of the most lust-fueled, most timeless exhibitions of a post Black Messiah Neo-Soul composition on record. It is also an hour’s long diary entry of his struggles with pain, self-worth, masks, addiction, and bloom, all in the orbit of sex. But for his band, BLK ODYSSY, this album was supposed to be exactly what it ultimately is. One sex addict’s coming-to-terms is another person’s collection of sultry, soulful baby-makers and emotionally immersive ballads, after all. And for those people - for the fans of all that it is that makes Neo-Soul, R&B, Funk, Jazz, Rap, and the Blues so honest, so sexy, so human - Diamonds & Freaks is a masterpiece in more ways than one.
The album is broken into four parts. Four chapters.
Chapter I: Dopamine and Hennessy. Introductory in sequencing, introductory further in its discourse, the four tracks opening Diamonds & Freaks pulse at large with an underlying exploration of adolescence and its accompany craving for placarding the carnal with inescapable emotion. That id comes to a head with ADAM & EVE where, as delineated by his journal entry on the subject, Elcock tumbles down the rabbit hole of his first sexual encounter, and the end of any sort of relative innocence he carried with him. Texturally, the album’s opening span feels drawn from the anterior edge of 2021 debut album, BLK VINTAGE and its expansive reprise, from which the band’s signature emotionally enveloped, organically instrumental, unapologetically long-compositional aesthetic last left off. Artfully funky and sensually soulful, tracks like SUMMER IN THE RAIN, slow burn the midnight mezcal on a narcotic obsession with indulgence. It’s dizzying and dark, yet still youthful and groovy.
Chapter II: Coochie & Big Booty. Both HONEYSUCKLE NECKBONE and ODEE were released ahead of the album’s June 9th drop. Both also successfully acted as microcosmic displays of the musical direction the heart of the project would eventually take. Maneuvering through shadowy alleys of downtrodden modern blues, high-pitch vocal exaltations interlace with the never-ending depth of the instrumentation at hand to set the stage less often for James Brown worthy explosions of vocal runs, and instead push more towards a low-fi rapped flow that was certainly present, but not defining of the BLK ODYSSY’s BLK VINTAGE just a year ago. Through Diamonds & Freaks’ two leading singles, Elcock edges often on his stamp as a deft, detailed lyricist, with an understated breath of energy. Thematically, this chapter unearths a more mature, and equally more complicated stage of our protagonist’s propulsion through a chapter of life with lust and materialism guiding the way. Experimentation, adultery, obsession, moments of weakness turning to falsities of flex. Bootsy Collins, KIRBY, and Rapsody cement the complexities of the subject matter with a mosaic of timeless deliveries woven into that of the band.
Chapter III: The Divine Stank. Like falling into a rabbit hole of sultry, rock-fueled funk, JUDAS & THE MOTHER OF STANK - produced by the Alchemist - rekindles the spoken word directionality that has dotted BLK ODYSSY’s artistry at every stop along their short, yet prolific run into Neo-Soul history. The rest of the chapter looks deeply inward, and towards a deserved moment of self-repudiation for the sex addict. Emotionally softer, PINK MARMALADE - with solo soulstress and fellow bandmate, Eimaral Sol - is a touching change of pace towards a discussion of legitimate romanticism in the wake of so much lustful distraction. And BROKE FOLK FUNK - fueled again by a raw dissection of funk clause and groove cemented in amber - made whole again by a couple of verses from the unparalleled Rapsody - is the album’s central danceable release.
Chapter IV: Diamonds & Freaks. In closure of his actual accompanying journal entry, Juwan Elcock discusses his on-again-off-again love’s pregnancy, and how it’s that event that has allowed him to come to terms with his addictions. Ultimately, too, he’s coming to terms with the pain that caused his need for escape. And penultimately, the album at large is his recollection of it all - of the whole journey to this point, to Diamonds & Freaks. And at this point - in this chapter - BLK ODYSSY feels a little lighter, a little freer. From an auditory aesthetic, there’s a jarring adherence to brass, to jazz, and to a certain element of jazz club soul that only exists when the room is filled with smoke, and the microphone dotted with teardrops. Self-aware and layered like ivy, LET ME GO, ORANGE WINE, LET IT GROW pulse in and out of stylistic nuance, from one end of BLK ODYSSY’s hip-hop corner, to their most jazz-backdropped soul other. In between, funky basslines, explosions of R&B vocalism, and instrumental bliss are omnipresent. And by way of discourse, the final chapter of this, their second album, also shines a light on the rangy air and understanding of the band’s ability to build such complicated, meandering composition, that their subject matter, too, knows no bounds.
Rebirth, then birth. BLK ODYSSY’s Diamonds & Freaks bleeds as an achievement in stylistic range, instrumental depth, immersive songwriting, layered composition, and ultimate self-realization, self-renaissance through art. Equally defined by its pulsating, honest storyline that doubles as a therapy session for its protagonist, and its brash textural waves that defy the very idea of one-laned stylistic adherence, it is an exhibition of music’s most emotionally nuanced traits, submerging its audience in nearly an hour of the most meditative and healing of spaces.