Che Noir’s “Smooth Jazz” (featuring The Other Guys and 38 Spesh) is where lessons come into fruition while acknowledging the past, leading to an assertive, confident, and positive force in the present.
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“Smooth Jazz” – Che Noir ft. The Other Guys, 38 Spesh
Ché Noir’s “Smooth Jazz” is a reminder of how to channel misfortune, loss, and life challenges.
To crawl out of a duel of despair and events that embody the bitter, strong taste of hopelessness can feel like trying to climb over the highest mountain. It can feel insurmountable. Taken off her recently released album No Validation (a collaboration with Washington, DC-based production duo The Other Guys), “Smooth Jazz” is an injection of self-worth and confidence that transmutes that heavy weight carried by many. It’s a hip-hop anthem of harnessing confidence for positive force, transmuting hard lessons and roadblocks into unending roads. And with an album name like No Validation, the song fits into the modicum of language of someone hyping themselves up, not waiting for anyone to decide their worth for them. That’s who Ché Noir is, and that’s what she is doing.
The song starts with a mid-frequency jazzy horn that provides a mid-tempo melody that holds a sustained note at the end of it. With that last note, another trumpet comes in, but with a high-pitched timber from that of a mute, and the contrast provides the perfect tension and rhythm that carries throughout the song. A well-spaced bass thumps along and trinklets of sporadic keys, almost like raindrops in high notes, completes a cinematic canvas.
Ché Noir raps over The Other Guys cinematic canvas with ease and a silky dexterity. Her words flow like water, and her storytelling is clear and inviting. It feels like she emulates the idea of “Smooth Jazz,” with calm assertion and there is this aura that she creates. Part of the third verse stands to me where she says:
When in debt from paying dues, I was cashing in lessons,
This passive income doesn’t come from being passive-aggressive
Noir inverts debt into lessons, lyrically and actionably. She uses only a few words that carry incredible weight. And her play on the word passive is illuminating. She declares she is not passive because she took action to gain passive income, and if there is a moment of doubt, she immediately reinforces her claim in the rest of the sentence. Those trumpets, drums, and bass loop around each verse, which has multiple bars. There is no chorus. And that jazzy, assertive, yet contemplative beat pulls taught over the song, never allowing an overexertion of energy. The tempo never escalates but the song still feels like it’s a reminder to be confident and to keep moving forward.
The track features Rochester, NY emcee, 38 Spesh and he comes in after Noir halfway through the song with a fibrous voice. And his lyrics add to the motif of the song.
The way that I speak
just increase my believability
it’s deep
me and the streets got a lethal chemistry
and I turned that shit to a legal entity
Like Noir, 38 spesh inverts lethal into legal entity, channeling negative action to positive action. His cadence sometimes feels conversational and the pauses that he takes between sentences show how well he plays with space. First, when he says “it’s deep,” there is a short pause after, and then there is a long pause after “me and the streets got a lethal chemistry.” This style combined with the lyrics generates so much texture and the beat goes on.
There is a cyclical reverence to this song. It’s a recognition of these energies swarming around us, channeling them, and changing them, almost like a constant metamorphosis. The sensation that resonates with listening to the song embodies a self-assertive bravery, like hyping yourself up on the way to work, or a meeting, or a confrontation, calmly, steadily, ready to channel that energy.
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:: stream/purchase No Validation here ::
:: connect with Che Noir here ::
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“Smooth Jazz” – Che Noir ft. The Other Guys, 38 Spesh
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© courtesy of the artist
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