Track Reviews // House of Pharaohs - 2008 (prod. Nyge)


3rd Single from Seasons (EP) (Parlohone, 17th May 2019)

House of Pharaohs are a London six rapper squad with a coterie of designers, producers and managers in their orbit holding down all the creative control and ownership of their own material. After receiving attention from industry taste-makers like Frank Ocean and the general online press for the post-genre album Real Faces in 2017, the South London sextet have been at work installing a creative process documented in this EP’s accompanying mini-doc Only The House. And it pays off on this single and EP

2008 is the 3rd single Seasons, all put together with Balham super-producer Nyge, who’s worked with contemporary successes like Section Boyz and AJ Tracey. This track more than any other on the EP sees the team hold the balance of their vying influences and personalities while maintaining raw energy for the duration. It’s a low key banger that surfs casual across a rolling wave of pulsing synths.

The interplay of each part is slick and seamless and within each contribution is pure poetry in motion. Drawing in fiery grime spitting, gloomy US hip hop and drill crooning, trap-flavoured afrobeat plus the character and cohesion that comes out of crews and collectives from Roll Deep to Brockhampton.

The group keep their heads up and their performances lively and nuanced while Nyge keeps the beat thumping and shuffling – the lyrics themselves speak of devotion, lust, abandon and sincere; managing to resist slipping into the murk of bawdy bragging as House of Pharaohs have done before pays off. 

The combination of boundary-pushing production with honesty and excitement in the performances is echoed all around the album in tracks like Keep the Telly On and Wonderland, as well as the solo side projects dropping all the time, all of which should keep ears peeled for the LP that will hopefully arrive soon.

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