K. Sparks

Super Senior
Double Up Entertainment : 2009

K. Sparks’ recent release Super Senior is fairly versatile, partly owing to the presence of several producers but also to Sparks’ success at adapting to those beatmakers’ respective musical styles. Not only do the tracks vary in emotional color, from laid-back reflections to high-energy bangers, but the differences in musical approach create a collection that is difficult, upon listening, to pin to a specific region or time. “Sunshine” is the kind of relaxed introspection that would sound at home on a classic Justus League release, while “I Know” is an unusual 8-bit club track with double-time vocals and internal rhymes, existing somewhere between the deep South and Oh No’s “The Ride.” Subsequent MySpace surfing seems to provide some insight into the disparate nature, revealing the collaborations to stretch across international boundaries, with production coming from places as wide-ranging as Maryland, Sweden, and France, while K. Sparks himself operates out of Queens. This fact combined with the regionally murky listening experience speaks not only of the ability of musicians to work together across great spaces but also for domestic hip-hop sounds to lose some of their local associations once detached from the U.S. context. From a distance, it’s all hip-hop.

It is not as if each track on Super Senior exists in a world of its own or is a bizarre mash-up of localities, rather it is that the individual songs might not always seem like the work of the same artist if not for K. Sparks’ unifying presence; his aforementioned ability to adjust does not imply a loss of uniquely individual vocal characteristics or of over-arching thematic content. There is little that is awkward or jarring in his vocal performances, they are relaxed, confident, and expressive so that attention easily rests on lyrics. The latter are concerned with usual subjects like social commentary, girls, success, etc., but are often dealt with in thoughtful, amusing ways. Highbrow and lowbrow both come under criticism, giving K. Sparks more of an ‘average guy’ persona.

Sparks feels like an artist coming into his own, it’s easy to catch ideas or sounds in Super Senior that are reminiscent of something else but there are also moments that defy easy categorization. Most of the tracks seem structured to feel satisfying as songs, having a sense of musical development, clear concepts, and memorable hooks. A few tracks or sketches probably could have been trimmed for the sake of brevity, but it’s difficult to agree on which ones, exactly, only that the conceptual framework and length for the entirety feel slightly stretched.

-Justin Deremo