Consequence & Royce Release An Anthem Filled With Self Pride & Soul (Audio)
2017 has already been a major year for Consequence, and it appears even bigger things are on the horizon for the Queens, New York rapper. Featured on A Tribe Called Quest’s We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service, Cons’ took to the Grammys stage earlier this month to take part in a historic performance bursting with political fervor. It seems he’s been galvanized into overdrive of the best kind, imbuing a new single featuring Royce 5’9 with the same kind of no-holds-barred energy in tackling saluting self-love and community building.
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“All Black Neighborhood” is equal parts postcard from the past and vision for the future, with Consequence introducing the song by saying “this is what I felt like when I grew up in New York” before saying “I want my kids to grow up in an all-black neighborhood,” which he says means “nobody’s in the red and the paper’s good.” He envisions a place where doctors, lawyers, and stock brokers live side-by-side, perhaps like old Harlem (and countless other neighborhoods past and present), where places like Astor Row and Hamilton Heights have long histories of housing densely populated pockets of rich Black American culture. In fact, the record itself is infused with elements of New York Jazz of yesteryear, draping it all as intergenerational in perspective.
Detroit’s Royce 5’9 offers up a similarly inspiring concept, emphasizing “Black unity” and punctuating his verse with references to nostalgia like Kangol, starter coats, and Hall & Oates. “Old people told me that ‘this is not the place that you should raise your kids’/I said ‘when I was a kid, shit, I was raised here’/Black neighborhood, carrying this lady’s groceries/I’m walkin’ but watchin’, I wish a hater would,” he raps. It’s an ode to the barbecues, the hoopin’, and the hustling that makes his neighborhood beautiful.
Whether this Consequence-produced jam will appear on a forthcoming project of his is still unclear, but here’s hoping.