bRavenous is an emcee originally from Halifax, now based in Calgary. He got started in the late ‘90s as part of the group CVG, but he’s been working as a solo artist for several years now. Just last June, we got his fifth solo album, Flaunting Imperfections. Now he’s right back with another project, Ghosts of Rockingham.

Sometimes it’s useful to look back and examine where we came from and think about the people and places that shaped us, for good or for ill. That’s what bRavenous is doing with Ghosts of Rockingham, a reference to the part of Halifax that he hails from. Over the course of fifteen tracks, bRavenous is revisiting his past, reflecting on how his environment shaped him, and exercising his demons over some banging East Coast boom bap. It’s a straightforward album that’s easy to get into, because there’s such a familiar style to the music. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Sometimes it’s better not to overthink things and just go with what you know and feel. The sound of the album can be seen as a throwback to when bRavenous was coming up, but it’s also just a classic hip hop sound that bRavenous has been rocking and rocking well. This is just about soulful, feel good mid-tempo tracks built off of soul samples, featuring some killer cuts from Uncle Fester. This comfort in style then allows bRavenous to really get into the personal lyricism and turn the album into a therapy session about figuring out how his upbringing in Rockingham made me who he is. Even though it’s a personal album, bRavenous does bring a few friends into the fold to round out the project, including Ghettosocks, Taichi, hermitofthewoods, Justo the MC, and a song-stealing turn from Lxvndr on “Square One,” who comes with so much charisma and skill, you’ll be running to look up who this artist is.

Ghosts of Rockingham is a no frills album that is just about rocking that boom bap and opening up and exorcising your past. bRavenous has been at this long enough and is mature enough as an artist to know how to address some serious subject matter in his music but still keep everything bumping.