Christian Rich: Compromise
Christian Rich are Grammy nominated, Chicago-born, Nigeria-raised twin brothers and music making duo Taiwo and Kehinde Hassan.
If the sight of a twin production team is a rarity in modern music, that’s not the end of the uncanny, otherworldly facts about them. The brothers are sci-fi space gazers who are influenced by Philip K Dick and his existentially probing fiction. Stories like ‘We Can Remember It For You Wholesale’ – the one that got turned into ‘Total Recall’, where Douglas Quail’s memories are erased on Mars.
They site King Sunny Adé’s jùjú music as a major influence. And then you get round to the fact they’ve had a hand in most of the Billboard #1 hip-hop albums of recent memory, from Drake’s ‘Nothing Was The Same’, to J. Cole’s ‘Born Sinner’, Earl Sweatshirt’s ‘Doris’, and Childish Gambino’s ‘Because The Internet’. On ‘FW14’ LP lead single, ‘Compromise’, they’ve created a swooning ride of inter-galactic pop featuring the Transatlantic talents of London’s Sinead Hartnett and Secaina Hudson and XXL 2015 Freshman and fellow non-conformist GoldLink whose leftfield dance-leaning stance has been given the seal of approval from rap guru, Rick Rubin. Given all of this, it’s clear we’re in a new day, and Christian Rich’s mind-expanding oeuvre is the soundtrack.
Not since N.E.R.D. has rap so lovingly been married to such a trippy production. It figures, as Taiwo and Kehinde’s way into the game was through friendship and mentorship by Pharrell Williams and Shae Haley. Meaning, they have the chops to produce hard-hitting socially conscious break out single, ‘Senorita’, for MC of the moment Vince Staples, but you’re just as likely to hear influences from Bossa Nova or Sade.
For now though, sit back and strap in for the delicious 5-star boogie of ‘Compromise’, a tale of twisted affections from two contemporary vocal bright lights, with the very brightest space cadets behind the mixing board.
