Greyboy

A survivor of the acid jazz trend throws a slight curveball in our direction. The hip-hop breaks that Greyboy has garnered much attention for with his last record have taken a step backward to make room for compositions that are heavily drenched in soul. Though by now it shouldn’t be all that surprising, seeing as this veteran DJ seems to change his spots each time he crops up from his dusty records, recording numerous jazz tunes with his now defunct Allstars project. Greyboy has opted to enlist the vocal chords of Bart Davenport and Sharon Jones to provide the soul element to his groove adventure, with Jones providing some of Soul Mosaic’s greatest moments, especially when she pours her heart out on the Quantic-assisted "Got to Be Love” — easily the album’s greatest track. The California producer has blended a lot of ingredients into this creation with his use of funk bass lines and horns, but with a small hip-hop undertone and numerous assists from electronic pulses. The combination of electro-soul can be a tad cheesy at times, with ’80s synth making an appearance one too many times, but Greyboy has always hit those cornball moments and they tend to be forgotten because he can still flip a hip-hop gem like the sinister "Bronson” with Mainflo or enlist the mighty Paul Nice to flip an incredible remix to close the record. Some of the best material on Soul Mosaic is thanks to outside help, but Greyboy can still drop jewels on his own as well. If you can overlook his desire to make a retro-sounding lounge record and you really just want to shake your ass to some dance-worthy cuts, then Soul Mosaic won’t fail you.