Suff Daddy is a producer from Berlin who has been releasing music for about fifteen years. He made his debut on Jakarta in 2016, when he released Birdsongs. Most recently, he teamed up with producer Elaquent in 2020 to release Misery Funk in 2020. Now he’s back with a new solo instrumental album, Basically Sober.

It doesn’t take long into Basically Sober to get why Suff Daddy has become one of the most respected instrumental hip hop artists working today. That’s because he’s able to shift seamlessly between styles, whether it be laid back jazzy grooves, classic boom bap, electro boogie, synth pop, or whatever else he feels like in the moment. Whatever he goes with, though, you can rest assured that Suff Daddy has put in the time to really develop his composition, and he’s given a lot of attention to his melodies, with some great hooks to each song on the album. He’s got a great feeling for his grooves, no matter the approach to the overall style of the song, and he’s done a great job of sequencing the album to give it a really nice flow that puts all of these different styles in conversation with each other. More than anything, this is just a fun album to listen to, one with a lot of great bounce to it, something that you can just turn up and groove out to and get that head nodding.

Basically Sober isn’t trying to reinvent the wheel. It’s just a really good instrumental hip hop album from a veteran producer in Suff Daddy who knows exactly how to create a fun listening experience while also finding room to be musically adventurous. It’s such an easy going album, it’s easy to overlook just how much work Suff Daddy has to put in to get the flow this good.