New music from Raury ... wait, who?
ATL artist sounds like nothing out now.
These days the Internet does an amazing job of building hype around an artist before there’s enough content or output to match the lofty praise. With that said, color me skeptical when Jabari Graham first mentioned the name Raury. What followed was a Google search that brought up more articles about the Black kid with “Amish swag” and message for the youth than actual samples of the music.
Then there was the release of his video for the track “God’s Whisper”:
Mind. Blown.
There wasn’t an artist making music in ATL I could compare Raury to and that excited me even more. The production value of the video alone was enough to make me at least respect that the kid apparently gives a shit about his entire package.
Similar to how A$AP Rocky simultaneously dropped videos to go along with his first two singles (“Purple Swag,” “Peso”), I immediately was hit with a visual representation to match the sounds I was hearing - all for the first time. There he was, the face of a more youthful (probably less bat-shit crazy) Charles Hamilton, singing like Kid Cudi (but better), and dressed like Gary Clark Jr.’s little brother. I was sold at his, “I won’t compromise,” proclamation 30 seconds into “God’s Whisper,” so of course that led me to the dreamy, <a href=”<iframe width=”100%” height=”166” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”no” src=”https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/86892167&color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true”>”Bloom,” watching and re-watching the antics of his #AntiTour, and looking for more music.
Alas, Raury recently dropped his latest offering, “Sunshine,” from the forthcoming Indigo Child project. Backed with some smooth female vocals (Who is this chick on here? Dopeness.), Raury goes from singing to rapping with, dare I say it, an Andre 3000-esque cadence that includes a lyrical vocabulary even some college students (mind you, he’s 17) would need to mark with a highlighter. Check out the track below and be on the lookout for more from Raury.