David Dallas quotes Juvenile and Soulja Slim's 2002 hit Slow Motion on the intro to Slow Down, a song from his forthcoming Something Awesome album, out next Monday August 31. The resemblance is more than titular*, with the guitar-laced bump of Fire & Ice's production a more subtle variation on Pro J's work with the New Orleans rapper.
But where Juvenile and Soulja Slim were appreciating the female form, Dallas is sitting inside his head, picking at the scabs of his doubts and insecurities on his Slow Down. He's crafted a remarkable lyric, one which shows the inverse of the necessary cloak of machismo which accompanies so much rap music.
Within moments of the first verse starting Dallas has followed his label-mate PNC (who did as much on Intro earlier this year) in announcing his atheism on record in 2009 ("Lord if you listenin'/ I ain't religious/ 'Cause you never showed me different") and painting a picture of the moments between shows and recording sessions when he allows the doubts in and lets them stay a while.
He sings the hook "So you're on your own feeling low now/ Steady tryna break free but don't know how". It's sweet and functional – as he says in September's Real Groove "if I could really sing, bro, I'd be a singer" – but I feel like the main reason he takes the hook is because the subject matter is too raw to put the words in anyone else's mouth save his own. But as far as we've come, the second verse is where it hits hardest, and there are shades of the self-loathing of Tourettes (albeit in a very different setting) in the way Dallas wrestles with himself and those around him.
"Spent the publishing cheque on groceries weeks ago/ Missus working extra hours so I eat alone/ 'cause you know someone gotta cover the deficit/ Say she don't mind but I can tell that she resentin' it/ And I don't blame her for it/ I feel lame for it/ Relationship strained for it/ So inadequate it's almost like I wanna hate her for it"
These words are a long way from glamour, and further wistful comparisons between his own income and those who he went to university with cement the vision of the rapper as cursed rather than blessed by his talent. When the dominant US approach has the MC dripping in diamonds and beautiful women (though in truth the Bentley is mostly leased for the shoot), the way Dallas opens up to the realities of the New Zealand experience is revelatory for a commercial hip hop artist.
It's a deep song, and when you put it together with previously released cuts like Big Time and Indulge Me already in the ether, Something Awesome is shaping as another plank in a stellar year for New Zealand hip hop. The album's out a week today, and this song is a free download until the album hits stores. Make sure to get it. In the meantime...
David Dallas – Slow Down (One weekly only. From Something Awesome, out August 31)
To download the song right click (PC) or ctrl click (Mac) the link and choose 'save target as' or 'save link as' from the menu.
* The pace of Dallas' song isn't too dissimilar to Bobby Valentino's
brilliant 2005 single Slow Dow either. Or kanye and Paul Wall's Drive Slow. If you put 'Slow' in a hip hop or R&B song it'll be A) slow, and B) great, basically.