Rockie Fresh – Driving 88

‘Driving 88’ is like one car ride on a breezy day. And while the lyrics give you a feeling of an easy life and enjoyment of success, paradoxically the music, throughout the whole mixtape, from songs like the very beautiful ‘Driving 88’ to ‘Never Never’ to ‘Don’t Worry’ to ‘Come Around’ to ‘Where I Wanna be’, with a soundtrack quality, gives you a feeling of urban melancholy; the feeling that maybe success is going to be ephemeral and it’s better to grab it while it’s there. As the car drives on the road to riches, Rockie reminisces on his younger days on the song ‘Twenties’. Even the radio-friendly ‘No fear’ blends in with the atmosphere.

Hip Hop having become an older genre, we now as an audience have a wide range of artists to listen to, from grown-up rappers to young rappers that still have to grow up. It’s up to us listeners to not let it become a chasm. What I mean is that we shouldn’t separate in any way the old and the young generation or look down at one or the other. Old has been young once. And young will be old one day. Hip Hop is for everybody. For the people who make it, for the people who love it. I’m 35 and I like to hear what the young rappers are doing. Just saying this because there are so many newcomers these days.

Going back to our review… well Rockie Fresh is not exactly a newcomer anyway. He already dropped a mixtape two years ago, called ‘The Otherside’. It had a more commercial sound overall, but if you like Rockie Fresh you should try it also (the brooding ‘A.C. Green’), you can see that he was already riding the beats well.

‘Driving 88’ is very much a one story album, one of being successful, and Rockie tells it with sincerity, almost in an intimate way and without arrogance. The lyrics here - we will all agree - are not outstanding but sometimes you have to let things be what they are and wait to see how it’s going to grow. I’m going to rephrase what I said in the introduction: whenever the lyrics are simple (personally I never minded simplicity), I can let the music speaks to me too, especially if the music itself is bringing an atmosphere. When we listen to instrumental electro or instrumental jazz, the music makes us feel and see things. It should be the same on a Hip Hop album.

With his relaxed and nonchalant flow, Rockie Fresh is on the trail of the Currency & friends or the ASAP Rocky & Schoolboy Q when they’re chilling. ‘Driving 88’ is one more proof that there is a new cool.