Jaberi and Deutsch – Safe Space (Holy Page)
The signs are there—if you know how to read them. The simple 90s retro album art, featuring the duo posed in classic gangsta poses; the album title’s reference to security culture and sex-positivity; the hand scrawled Safe Space on the J-card; the sartorial choices of flannels and FILAs. Jaberi and Deutsch, coming straight out of the underground music scene centered around the western half of Oakland, made a record unlike anything you’ll hear coming out of the retro-pastiche bands being touted in the indie press. Their retro harkens back to a romantic and popular, but political, take on R&B and smooth hip-hop of the 80s and early 90s.
The intimacy is palpable on this record. Intimate in the bedroom sense and in the emotional sense. It’s a record that’s easy to relate to, connecting shitty day jobs, lost love and friendship, as well as those adolescent feelings of romance and sexuality that are hard to let go. David Jaberi’s verses hit the close to the heart with raps about lost parents, dead friends (“I Tried To Call You Up But You’re Dead” with a slamming guest verse by Quincy Mosby), ethnic identity (“half-brown, half-white/what am I supposed to look like” from “I Am The Shah”) and bullying (“No Bully”). Without sounding fey or weak the guys take down the macho assumptions and posturing one finds in hip hop and R&B but still capture the innocence and utopian dreams of a young radical in the big city.
Their music melds the politics of punk and DIY music with sensuality of R&B bouncing across rap-able beats and smooth synthesizers. This record is sexy, but sex-positive (“Let’s Make Love”), emphasizing consent, gender bending and safe spaces for emotional and sexual expression. Romance dominates the record, and the coy vocals draw you into the tunes that are flavored with the obvious sonic markers of throwback R&B: electronic handclaps, square wave synth lines, heavy swinging beats and atmospheric pads. Despite the retro-isms, sonically, the lyrics are distinctly of this new decade referencing Facebook, simultaneous fandom of the Backstreet Boys and Aretha Franklin, and the tough economic circumstances of post-recession college students and graduates.
While the record touches on some heavy subject matter, it’s not a downer. Like the sixth track’s title says, these guys “Wanna Lift You Up”. The record’s punk posi vibes are beautifully expressed by the anthemic closer “Fly Away”. A good dose of humor is thrown around the record, especially by Mark Deutsch (“time for some action/ come and hit me like a drum”); however, the track most emblematic of their humor, and politicization, is the all too short track “One %”. This ironic stab at the moneyed world of Wall Street and silver spoon bourgeois is one of the best Occupy-related political songs that doesn’t use the tired tropes, sonically and lyrically, of the 60s hippie and folk protest music. Despite the politics evident on the record, which could be easy to miss if one isn’t informed about the radical leftists leanings of many young folks in the Bay Area, they never get in the way of expressing the heartfelt emotions of many young folks sorting through sexual relationships, the extended adolescence and delayed adulthood of the so-called “millennial” generation.
Yer ears are being treated to some homemade music, expressing the sentiments of the new urban homelands of radical 20-somethings, and as such this record doesn’t sound highly produced like most radio-friendly hip hop. It’s retroisms and naked vocals may turn some off but they are upgraded from the demos Jaberi and Deutsch released on their tour last winter. These guys sound like your closest friends dropping some rhymes and talking about their real lives, not some rapper’s overindulgent fantasies and faux gangsterisms. No glorification of macho bullshit and college-party nihilism, but rather a sensual take on personal connections and the struggles of the unpopular and average kids who just want to make, create and love. This is a brilliant record imbued with respect, emotion, sex and positivity released through the smoothest R&B and non-commercial hip hop you’ll hear this year. Although sometimes clunky, their lyricism is beyond clever (“did you say you were bi-curious?/that word loses meaning when you hang with us”) and these boys definitely understand how to craft a catchy hook. The Holy Page record label out of Baltimore, who released the record on cassette, were lucky to release such a novel and DIY brand of smooth hip hop and R&B.
Listen/purchase: Safe Space by Jaberi & Deutsch