My Mind Is A Garden
“Life begins the day you start a garden”
Gardening, facilitating growth of another form of life is beautiful, complex and blessed. An earnest and charming part of our existence is to live and to let live, help live, help grow. This album is so aptly titled. RoachKxng is one of the members of Vagabond Mafia, he is the producer, sound engineer and of course his own artist as well. His music is a confluence of styles, art, sounds and textures. It is an exercise in the exploration of social norms and attitudes towards mental health in hip hop music. Although the music is rooted in hip hop the entire Vagabond Mafia aesthetic is more than just hip hop, it is the burgeoning of beauty and experimentation of sound and cannot be limited to hip hop itself.
The entire album has a mellow production and a welcome unique approach to music in the hip hop genre. It is honest and bold. From the beginning to the end it challenges the conventions/ideations of masculinity in hip hop and what it means to be truly real and creative. The first track is just that, “Bed” examines being unable to get out of bed, feeling some type of way and what it is like for the creator to truly inhabit that space. The album proceeds with its mellow, smooth and cool approach and continues in this storyline of health, self care and creating throughout. Some hip hop producers focus very specifically on beats, melodies and how lyrics will fill that space in between, however RoachKxng does this layering of sound, vocals, adlibs, and textures throughout the track so that each track isn’t this grouping of separate sounds but rather this meeting of feelings, production elements to recreate an emotional value that the music was drawn from. Truly inspirational music.
The entire album is concise, carefully constructed words, soundscapes and feelings that aim for the heart. Highly recommended that this entire album be listened to from start to finish and that you explore the offerings of RoachKxng, Vagabond Mafia and Jeffrey Misfit. You can find music from the artists by clicking the names below.