{"id":1085,"date":"2019-06-13T10:05:29","date_gmt":"2019-06-13T17:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shhhinsidevoice.com\/?p=1085"},"modified":"2019-06-13T10:09:10","modified_gmt":"2019-06-13T17:09:10","slug":"review-of-ventura-by-anderson-paak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shhhinsidevoice.com\/?p=1085","title":{"rendered":"Review of Ventura by Anderson Paak"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anderson Paak, born in Oxnard, Los Angeles, is an extremely talented rapper, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and music producer. Paak has released over 50 songs in his musical career, each one unique. His most recent album, Ventura<\/em>, continues to tell Paak\u2019s story about his life on the California coast. Similar to Paak\u2019s many talents, his tracks fall into multiple categories: funk, hip-hop, soul, and contemporary R&B. The album Ventura<\/em> especially emphasizes his roots in R&B and soul, which puts the listener into a state of trance and ease. The carefully selected features, array of instruments utilized, and tone throughout the album left me \u201cfeel good\u201d and mellow state.
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Paak made his debut with O.B.E vol 1<\/em>, and followed it up with Venice<\/em> in 2014. Since Paak\u2019s first release, he has only continued to produce hits and make connections with very talented people in the industry. His band, The Free Nationals, are a collective group of very musically gifted individuals. While all band members serve as backing vocalists, Jose Rios specializes in guitar, Ron Tnava Avant in keyboard, Kelsey Gonzalez in bass guitar, and Callum Connor as DJ\/drummer. Even though Paak started making music during  high school, it wasn\u2019t until the drop of his first album that his career really took off.
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Malibu<\/em> was Paak\u2019s first album to climb the charts and receive critical acclaim. It was even awarded a Grammy for Best <\/em>New Artist and Best Urban Contemporary Album<\/em>. As Paak\u2019s career flourished, he has had more opportunities to work with very talented musical figures, such as Nate Dogg, Kendrick Lamar, and Dr. Dre. His most recent album prior to Ventura, Oxnard,<\/em> was a huge success and was beneficial to both Dre and Paak in launching and relaunching their careers. Paak actually created both of the albums, Oxnard<\/em> and Ventura,<\/em> at the same time with Dr. Dre because their creative energy and flow were peakin.\u2019 While the albums were produced at the same time,  they have very different themes and feels. \u201cOne is gritty and one is pretty, one you can play on your way to Vegas and one you can play on your way back after you do all those horrible things you can reflect,\u201d Paak says in an interview with Zane Lowe.
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The album Ventura<\/em> is about how Paak came into himself and ultimately discovered his soul during his developmental years, specifically throughout high school when he was living in Ventura. The soulful emphasis in the album is not the only aspect that makes it unique. It is  more mellow than his previous work and has a very vintage, old time R&B feel. Paak explores multiple themes including politics, love, growth, and even resistance. For example, in the song \u201cKing James<\/em>\u201d there are some politically charged lyrics. He raps, \u201cWe couldn’t stand to see our children shot dead in the streets. But when I finally took a knee Them crackers took me out the league.\u201d There is a very rhythmic groove to his flow in \u201cKing James<\/em>\u201d; the sounds of warped bass and buoyant trumpets give it a positive defiance and resistance. Additionally, he paints Lebron James as a symbol for change. Even though this album has many critics, the highlight tracks absolutely outshine the ones that sag. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The album is kicked off with the smooth bopping song \u201cCome Home.<\/em>\u201d The feature, Andre 3000, has a killer performance with great delivery. In another standout track, \u201cJet Black,\u201d Paak features the legend, Brandy, who is basically R&B royalty. Paak said, \u201cI just didn\u2019t hear anybody else on this hook,\u201d referring to Brandy. One of the only songs that lacked the same potential as the others was \u201cTwilight<\/em>\u201d because of the repetitive beat and stiff structure.
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Anderson Paak has an incredible amount of charisma, both live on stage and in interviews. His album Venetura revealed a new side of him, showcasing even more of his talents. Even after listening to the album on repeat, I never got tired of it. Every time I was left in a different zone, with a different feeling and a discovery of new musical aspects present in the songs. I would highly recommend that you give not only this album a listen, but also check out his previous work for a reference point. I rate this album a 4.6 out of 5. Take your curiosity beyond this review and check out the album for yourself!
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Anderson Paak, born in Oxnard, Los Angeles, is an extremely talented rapper, singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and music producer. Paak has released over 50 songs in his musical career, each one unique. His most recent album, Ventura, continues to tell Paak\u2019s story about his life on the California coast. Similar to Paak\u2019s many talents, his tracks […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":1087,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,41,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-music-reviews","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shhhinsidevoice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shhhinsidevoice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shhhinsidevoice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shhhinsidevoice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shhhinsidevoice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1085"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/shhhinsidevoice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1089,"href":"https:\/\/shhhinsidevoice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1085\/revisions\/1089"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shhhinsidevoice.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shhhinsidevoice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shhhinsidevoice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shhhinsidevoice.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}