The Expert is a producer from Dublin who first got his start as part of a duo with Messiah J. In 2015, he broke out on his own as a solo artist with the release of his solo instrumental album, Dynamic Drift. In 2019, he teamed up with Cold Busted to release his next solo album, Excursions. Just last year, he made a big leap when he joined forces with emcee Jermiside and made the brilliant album, The Overview Effect. Now he’s back to show that nothing about that was a fluke, this time working with emcee Stik Figa to drop another gem of an album, Ritual.

Stik Figa is of course the Topeka-raised, Fort Worth-based emcee who has released projects with L’Orange, August Fanon, and Conductor Williams, just to name a few. We most recently heard from him just this past February, when he dropped Pookey: Stik Figa Finds Himself… Stik Figa has had a long career at this point and released a lot of different types of projects over the years. At this point in his career, you might not expect him to do anything career-defining, but you do expect it to be solid. He is a veteran emcee who knows how to rock a crowd, and he hasn’t been one to phone it in. With all that said, I was familiar with what The Expert was able to accomplish with Jermiside, so I was looking forward to what he might do with Stik Figa. Just a short while into the opening track, “BlacAmerica,” it became clear that this was going to be a special album. The Expert is once again reaching deep into his bag and throwing down this brilliant mix of soul, jazz, psychedelic rock, and dub samples all flipped and translated into his own unique spin on boom bap. The beats absolutely bang, but they are also incredibly creative and always in motion, while still remaining accessible and pop friendly at the same time. It’s a delicate balance, but one that The Expert navigates with precision. Stik Figa feeds off that energy, and from the moment he first steps to the mic on “BlacAmerica” and starts spitting passionately and intelligently about the state of race relations in the U.S., you can get a sense of just how inspired he is on this album. As we work our way through the album, he continues to give you a master class on what it means to be an emcee – he’s switching up his flow and giving you all sorts of different looks from song to song, dancing around each beat that The Expert is throwing down. He’s then balancing that with his lyrics, which range from the playful to the spiritual to the deeply personal, all while hitting you with hooks that will stay with you for days. On top of all this, we’re also getting an expert deployment of guest stars, including Blu, Daniel Luke, Solemn Brigham, Tanya Morgan, Defcee, and Sleep Sinatra. Not only does each guest bring it, they are used in really thoughtful and specific ways where they bring just the right amount of flavor to each track and elevate the overall project. When you put it all together, you get this incredibly well-rounded album that is extremely exciting to listen to, hitting just the right balance between being fun and accessible and being challenging and adventurous.

The Expert did an amazing job with Jermiside last year, and it seemed like it was going to be tough to follow up on that success. While we were all thinking that, The Expert apparently told the independent hip hop world to hold his beer, as he went right back to work, this time getting a career defining performance out of Stik Figa. Ritual is not an album you want sleep on. Play this one loud and often.