Goldlink22 year-old Washington, D.C. rapper Goldlink made serious waves with his 2014 mixtape The God Complex, where he managed to find a bright, upbeat middle ground between house music and hip hop, mixing soft production (the kind that would make you think of Kaytranda, or SBTRKT) with hard, street-savvy rhymes. Last year’s And After That, We Didn’t Talk saw those rhymes coloured with emotional detail, with Goldlink venturing more into R & B territory, and singing a fair bit.
It’s in that house / R & B realm that Goldlink and Australian singer songwriter George Maple share a common thread – Maple’s soulful voice is prime for an R & B cut, and her solid house resume features strong vocal features on productions for smooth-dance acts like Flight Facilities and Snakehips. Her more recent work singing with the more heavier trap style of What So Not brings her even closer into Goldlink’s trap/rap realm.
Given the above, Goldlink and Maple are not as unexpected a pairing as you might think – and on Maple’s new track Sticks and Horses, they show us exactly how well they make it work; contrasting the hard and soft elements of both of their music styles with skill; with Noah Breakfast, WILLIS and What So Not rounding out a compelling production.
The accompanying racy video clip, which is partly shot in red and pink hues reminiscent of Goldlink’s video clips, locates itself in typical rap video territory - open desert, stripclubs, shady boudoirs – and depicts a scantily-clad Maple writhing about on a bed covered in cash. Then she's tucking money into the G-strings of strippers, then there's some kidnapping-type story line where she gags a guy and rubs up against him in leather and shoves a gun in his face. As far as ‘strip club revenge’ video clips go, it kind of comes across as uninspired - a poor man’s version of Rihanna’s Bitch Better Have My Money - and feels inauthentic, despite Maple’s more recent aesthetic foray into a bondage-fashion driven style. Which is a shame, because this is an inspired and authentic song.
Listen / watch below:
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