Budamunk is a producer from Japan who has been releasing music for over a decade, working with everyone from Ill Sugi to Mr. Brady to J.Lamotta in the process. In 2015, he teamed up with fellow Japanese producer Fitz Ambrose to make an album called Budabrose. The two hit it off so well, they came back with Budabrose 2 in 2017. Now, after a hiatus, they have come back with Budabrose 3.

For their third go-round, Budamunk and Fitz Ambrose aren’t trying to reinvent the wheel. Instead, they are just enjoying each other’s creative energy and doing what they do best, which is crafting these left field downtempo beats. Nothing is too wild, it’s just this constant tweaking and subverting of the style that keeps you on your toes across the album. It could be a simple switch up of the beat, or it could be an unexpected melodic element, but whatever it is, it always works. That’s the beauty of the creative partnership between Budamunk and Fitz Ambrose. They just always keep improving upon what they’ve done before, with this energy that feels like one of them is always asking the other, “What if we tried this?” On top of all this, we get some tasty features from Devin Morrison, Jamma-Dee, Chris Rivers, Gibby, K-Flash, DJ Scratch Nice, and Silent Jay, who all get to come in at just the right moment to add just a little extra flavor to the project and set everything off, just enhancing the solid groundwork being laid down by Budamunk and Fitz Ambrose.

Budabrose 3 is exactly what you want from the third album from Budamunk and Fitz Ambrose. These two have great chemistry together and clearly thrive working with each other, and they’ve made some great experimental downtempo hip hop in the process.