Nickodemus is a deejay/producer from New York who has been making music for over two decades. Since the time he got started, he showed a real interest in bringing different types of music across the globe together in the name of dance music. This was true when he dropped his last album, A Long Engagement, back in 2018, and it’s true now with his latest album, Soul & Science.

Now, there have been many attempts over the years at making “global” or “world music” accessible to listeners in the U.S. by blending it with hip hop or house music. However, most of them are cheesy and terrible, largely because they just helicopter in and just sample the different types of music on the most surface level. The engagement isn’t really there, so the music ends up feeling ridiculous and discardable. Every once in a while, though, you come across an artist like Nickodemus, who is really doing the work to not only engage with different styles of music across the globe, he’s reaching out to musicians from these different cultures and learning from them and collaborating with them, so that understanding and communication goes to the core of the project. On Soul & Science, Nickodemus is working with artists like Antonio Lizana, Pat Kalla, The Illustrious Blacks, Haydee Soul, The Candela Allstars, Huaira, Captures, Mauro Durante, The Real Live Show, Indigo Prodigy, Alsarah, The Spy From Cairo, Bad Colours, Internet Provider, MC Saturn 6, Falu, Barzo, Troy Simms, and Jungle Fire Horns. They are bringing in Middle Eastern, Latin American, Carribean, and other flavors of music to the party. This is a lot of cooks in the kitchen, but Nickodemus is a veteran at this shit, and he knows who to bring in on different tracks and how to build with them, whether he’s leaning in more house, disco, or hip hop directions, and how to blend that with these different genres of music from around the globe. The beauty is that not only do you get these great musical conversations and cultural exchanges on each track, but because Nickodemus is also a veteran deejay, you get an album that moves and flows seamlessly from start to finish, always keeping the party going. The result is a really fun album full of these musical and cultural exchanges that are incredibly fun to dance to.

Soul & Science isn’t really a change of pace from Nickodemus, but when you’ve carved out a niche like he has and you just keep discovering all of these different talents that work in different genres from different cultures that you can bring together in the name of dance music, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that he puts in the time, the care, and the effort each time around to make something really unique that is fun to listen to, but will also open your ears and mind to something new that you didn’t know about before.