John Book’s Best Of 2009: Best Hip-Hop Song
The moment I heard this song, I somehow knew that it would be my favorite of the year. It’s a very spiritual song for two spiritual artists, but it’s not an overly religious song by any means. Yet what hit me immediately, as I said in my review 9 months ago was the line “in my meditation, I saw a manifestation of elevation”. Braille may have written it as a means of saying he looks towards a higher power, but the song can also be a way to say “aspire for better”. By mentioning “meditation”, Braille suggests looking into yourself for guidance. As Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire wrote in 1974 on the Open Our Eyes album, “in our heart lies all the answers to the truth you can’t run from.”
Then you have the instrumental by Symbolic One, and with a drum break that was also used by the Beastie Boys 20 years ago driving the song forward, I was hooked. The song had an old feel, and as someone who has been following Braille’s music since his debut album, I felt this is perhaps what he has been aspiring to.
I am sure amongst their fans, the spiritual side of the lyrics take on one meaning. For me, it simply said “whatever you got, whatever you’re doing, wherever you’re at, try to better yourself. Aim high”. It was a small burst of positivity in a genre that sometimes gets caught in its own hype, or tends to eat itself into oblivion, but in an indirect way, Braille and Symbolic One wanted to “aim high”. In a pool of muck, they offered a bit of hope.
VIDEO: Grillade “Dream of You (Emotionally Yours)” | This Is Book’s Music posted: 17 Nov at 2:02 pm
[...] vocals on the track Braille and Symbolyc One did together called “It’s Nineteen”, a song I felt was the best hip-hop song of 2009, and decided to investigate by checking out what else she had. She simply posted that she was in a [...]