Curtis Cross has been innovating and re-energizing the local post-Slum Village creative hip hop scene. He's better known as Black Milk, and has recently appeared on Detroit stages with the funky Will Sessions Big Band.
His new LP is audaciously called
Album of the Year. L.A. Times critic Jeff Weiss breaks it down.
Excerpt:
The new album from Fat Beats-signed Detroit production wunderkind Black Milk plays out like a legacy bid -- an attempt to place him on the all-time A-List alongside his legendary production predecessors: Pete Rock, DJ Premier, and the acknowledged Motor City messiah J Dilla.
Comparisons to the late James Yancey have accompanied Milk since the first half of the last decade, when he became one of Slum Village's go-to producers in the wake of Dilla's departure. Often branded Dilla's rightful heir, the 27-year-old born Curtis Cross has certainly inherited his knack for knocking off-kilter drums and turning soul samples spectral. And like Dilla, Milk's production prowess outstrips his rhyme skills.
Read the entire review
here.
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