Boog Brown
Last year, Atlanta bred femcee Boog Brown and producer Apollo Brown released their collaborative album, Brown Study, via Mello Music Group. The project brought together Atlanta flavor with Detroit based production.
The end result was a soulful and honest glimpse chronicling Boog Brown’s walk through life, as well as the soundtrack for anyone living the beautiful struggle. The production that Apollo Brown laid out perfectly helped make Boog’s stories appear visual, however, she wanted to try it again with her new remix album Brown Study Remixes.
Typically, when an artist creates a remix album most of the time either the production is better than the original or worst. With this album, the production isn’t as memorable as the production laid out by Apollo, but what works, works very well. The track that works the least is Georgia Anne Muldrow’s update of “My Lova,” featuring Poodie the Byz. The original production that Apollo Brown laid out featured a soulful sample that essentially puts listeners in love just by listening—Muldrow’s update does not. Listening to this track it seems like the reincarnation of Busta Rhymes’ The Coming era and he may just pop out of the song and say something to the effect of “Woo Hah! Got you all in check.” Also, the production laid out by Nick the 1da on “Shine,” doesn’t necessarily match the optimistic and boastful quality of the lyrics, it sounds more space like and is kind of distracting.
What that being said, there are a few updates on the album that work well shown first with one of the leaks from the album, “UPS,” featuring production from Dunc of DTMD (great album). Dunc’s update keeps the essence of the original production and helps to visualize exactly what Boog is speaking of. One of the deepest songs on the project, “Blink,” tells the story of three different forms of betrayal which all end in a form of payback. The first story is that of a man who is a cheater who down the line contracts HIV. The second story is the story of lady who keeps snubbing good men, for men who are abusers, while the third story is of a person who plans to get rich doing bad things but never thinks of the consequences or those who may be out to get them. The production that Def Dee lays provides helps to perfectly tell the story of sex, money and criminal activity.
Of the remix for “Growth,” by 14KT, he said that being able to remix this song was like a special moment for him to have the honor to remix it and that was shown with his production. The production that 14KT lays out makes for one of the most impressive tracks on the album. “Detroit,” is one of the other highlights on the album. The production that Apollo lays out on this song is soulful, and smooth, not to mention the J.Dilla and Phat Kat reference on the song, “Don’t nobody care about us, all they do is doubt us,” which is the epitome of Detroit.
Overall, the update is fine; however, this isn’t necessarily a project that needed to be remixed. The original production that Apollo laid out originally set the bar so high, that the new production had to have surpassed that to be great, but only a few came close to the original.
-Erin Duncan
