Raw Poetic is a D.C. artist who initially got started in the mid-‘00s as half of the duo known as Panacea alongside K-Murdock. About five years back, he teamed up with D.C. producer Damu the Fudgemunk to release their first album together, The Reflecting Sea (Welcome to a New Philosophy). In 2020, they upped the ante when the two of them paired up with jazz legend Archie Schepp to release the album Ocean Bridges. Now, using the same rhythm section from that session, these two have come back with yet another album, Laminated Skies.

The sessions for this album actually took place back in the summer of 2019 in Brentwood, Maryland. Damu laid down a mixture of live and programmed drums, strings, vibraphone, vinyl scratching and synthesizers, and then brought in Pat “P” Fritz on guitar and Luke Stewart on bass to round out the sound. That sound is as expansive as you might imagine, bringing in elements of jazz, classical, indie rock, soul, gospel, funk, hip hop, and electronic music, mixing it all together to create a style all their own. What helps tie all of this together is Raw Poetic on the mic. If you’ve spent the time with his music, you know what a thoughtful and creative emcee he is, but in recent years he’s pushed himself to become even more than that. Over the course of the album, he’s singing and delivering great rock and soul hooks, he’s rapping his ass off, and he’s breaking off moments of spoken word without losing any momentum with the music. He’s got a great singing voice with a rich tone and little rasp to his delivery, and his flow as an emcee is versatile and creative as can be, and he always finds just the right way to fit his words into Damu’s arrangements to create this dynamic push and pull that always demands your focus. Raw Poetic is also getting very intimate and creative with his lyricism. At different moments, he’s giving you his abstract and philosophical thoughts, or he’s giving you some very personal details of his life, or, in the case of “Ralph Ellison,” he’s putting himself in conversation with the ideas put forth in Ellison’s classic novel, Invisible Man, to discuss his feelings about where he fits in in this world. Sometimes the songs work as straight ahead pop songs, but then there are the more epic compositions, such as “Hey Autumn Pt. 1 and When Autumn Replied Pt. 2,” which clocks in at over eight minutes. In lesser hands, a song like that could feel self-indulgent and cause an album to slowly grind to a halt. With Raw Poetic and Damu, they are giving you so much passion and creativity and taking you through so many movements without losing sight of the overall optimistic sound of the track, you just revel in its glory and pump your fists at the climatic moments.

Laminated Skies feels like the culmination of a great artistic partnership between Damu the Fudgemunk and Raw Poetic. They push each other in really interesting directions and get a lot out of each other, but they also clearly enjoy the process, and that joy and passion always comes across. It’s what takes a musically ambitious and challenging album and makes it fun and accessible to listen to.