Review Text
What do you get when you combine "Canada's Dopest Female MC" (Exclaim Magazine) with Canada's Best Kept Secret? You get FREE: the debut collaborative MC/Producer project between Juno-nominated Hip Hop Artist Eternia and the criminally slept on Juno-Award Winning Hip Hop Producer Rel McCoy. The first full-length release for Eternia since the critically acclaimed "At Last" with producer MoSS (Fat Beats Records), Eternia returns with all the slice & dice super-lyricism audiences have grown to expect from her, as well as surprisingly newfound depth and simplicity that can only be attributed to the maturation of her certified veteran MC status. Designed with a similar ethos to At Last, and with MoSS's blessing, Rel McCoy expertly provides some of the most sophisticated, moving, soulful & dynamic production we've heard Eternia rhyme on, in the same vein as a Pete Rock or a Hi-Tek but with a sonic stamp all his own. A veteran emcee in his own right, Rel McCoy - formerly known as Relic - also contributes guest vocals on "Cycles" & "Secret." FREE features thoughtfully curated guest appearances by: Shad (CBC Q, Hip Hop Evolution), Mr. Lif (Def Jux, Mello Music Group), Wordsworth (The Lyricist Lounge Show, EMC), Phoenix Pagliacci (The Sorority, TRP.P), soul singers Range da Messenga (Hezekiah) & Eliki Sol (Ski Beatz) & the haunting vocals of up & coming Canadian singer/songwriter Sheilagh McNab. FREE is the sonic equivalent of a baptism: a first step towards wholeness and freedom. The album holds the tension between rebirth, faith and peace of mind juxtaposed with the day-to-day realities of anxiety, fear, uncertainty and failed relationships. All this tension is cushioned by vulnerable confessions of how little we ultimately know or can control and packaged in sophisticated sonics that feel as familiar as the golden era of Hip Hop but as timeless as old spirituals. It's time to BE... FREE.
