Los Angeles-bred singer, songwriter, and musician Georgia Anne Muldrow recently released her new album VWETO II via Mello Music Group. WETO II is the sequel to her 2011 album by the same name. Like its predecessor, VWETO II is an all-instrumental affair, reestablishing Muldrow as one of the most reliable crafters of sturdy, funky, spaced-out hip-hop working today.
Nowhere else on the globe would the deployment of all these seemingly disparate sounds in service of a single end seem reasonable, even intuitive. Muldrow grew up the daughter of a jazz guitarist and the musical director of a spiritual center, the very embodiment of a musical community that is at once concerned with the corporeal world and something beyond. It’s why the album’s penultimate song, the head-nodding “Wu Punk,” is able to be not only menacing but a little bit Gothic; it’s why it seems perfectly natural for Muldrow to title one of the most celebratory cuts “Nate Dogg’s Eulogy.”
Vweto, in Swahili, means “gravity.” Where Muldrow’s songs often grapple with ideas that are complex and esoteric, VWETO II is a reminder that their backbone is a tight, expert musicianship. The album could be played at a summer cookout or a weekend house party and be an instant crowd-pleaser, but it also rewards more attentive listening –– to the subtle tweaks of familiar formulas, to the high-wire technical passages, to the emotional energy being wrung from each instrument in the mix. It should be no surprise that for an artist like Georgia Anne Muldrow, even a return to the basics would be a step into the future.
Jump on the mothership below and take a journey into the future. Enjoy!
Discover more of Georgia Anne Muldrow’s music here.
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