The Essentials: AMANI & KING VISION ULTRA - An Unknown Infinite
‘The Essentials’ series covers the music that represent fundamental pieces of the musical art form.
“An Unknown Infinite feels like a lucid dream.”
A central problem I see with the present discourse on today’s societal issues, is that the standard of living has been elevated to an acceptable level for a powerful minority in this world. This gives opportunity for a subtle, but ultimately destructive worldview to metastasize. Since some of us aren’t being drafted into a world war, have access to fancy iPhones and clean drinking water (emphasis on the some once again), there is a dangerous complacency that has percolated over the years that has infected people’s perceptions of the grave real-world issues that need to be fundamentally transformed.
I see us living in a time where we have long passed the era of obvious change.
Regardless if the internet was a more impactful force for change… tell that to someone living during the time of the Moon landing, or the invention of the car. In the moment, it felt viscerally unfathomable.
Regardless if the climate crisis poses a largely insurmountable existential threat to society… tell that to someone who was drafted to go fight in a World War and experience absolute atrocities on a daily-basis. In the moment, that felt like the most consequential event imaginable.
However, not in an effort to minimize any of these historical events in the slightest, they fundamentally were more easy to grasp and connect with for the average person. People easily came to grips with the sheer magnitude of the moment. Nowadays though, many people seem to think that we have “evolved”. That we have reached a certain threshold of civility that has rendered current problems trivial, or “woke SJW” over exaggerations.
But the thing is, the world is still exponentially evolving… just not in ways that are as plainly clear to the naked eye. Through the genesis of the internet, artificial intelligence, widening wealth disparities, rapidly evolving work arrangements, and an inevitable climate catastrophe… the rate of change in the world has actually never been higher.
We can’t seem to deal with this paradox where we can’t square acknowledging objective advances in the world (e.g., medical breakthroughs, women and LGBTQ+ rights) while also acknowledging all of the evil stuff that still exists in our world. It’s either all bad, or all good. Black or white. We’re either 100% doomed, or have nothing to worry about. Luckily for us, AMANI and KING VISION ULTRA are not interested in having such a binary conversation.
On An Unknown Infinite, AMANI and KING VISION ULTRA effectively live in the margins.
AMANI resists the urge to provide lazy uncontroversial platitudes, and stop the discussion at the facts of how the state of the world function. He goes a step further. Yes, the margins of society are certainly impacted by the tangible and objective consequences of unmitigated capitalism, racism, etc. These are ideas that AMANI certainly explores on this album. However, just these facts by themselves, paint an incomplete picture.
Many artists have successfully explained these concepts in the past. However, what makes communicators like a billy woods and an AMANI so special, is that at the core of their rhymes, there is a genuine authenticity that allows listeners to connect to the true human element of a situation.
The lyricism of AMANI is very strong, but not necessarily due to any exotic word choices or triple entendres. Instead, AMANI’s raps feature a raw bluntness that makes seemingly benign lyrics hit you hard. In other words, AMANI infuses a sense of urgency into each and every bar that maintains a level of tension throughout this album that is rarely achieved in music. It’s a method to lyricism that could easily feel played out, or overdone over the course of an entire project. But AMANI pulls this off at every turn, since his rhymes come off so natural, authentic, with a plainspokenness that cuts through the noise and gets its point across wholly. You feel the paranoia, and the strength behind AMANI’s sentiments.
AMANI isn’t alone either, as all of the featured guests provide excellent lyrical contributions that further perpetuate this arresting atmosphere.
This captivating feeling, which hits you at your core, is not simply supported by the lyrics though. KING VISION ULTRA, along with exceptional beat contributors in DøøF, Nick Hakim, and Ahwlee, give this album the backdrop necessary to complete this complex and emotionally rich world.
If you are not familiar with this album up until this point, you may be thinking that An Unknown Infinite is an absolutely depressing and desolate album that will suck the hope right out of your soul. But it’s not like that… at all.
Surely this is generally a heavy album that tackles a lot of difficult issues. However, this album simply refuses to half-ass the picture they wanted to paint. On this LP, there is a grounded and honest hope that feels rooted in community, love, knowledge, and understanding. There are many interesting juxtapositions on this album that make the listener confront the whole of the situation, and not just one incomplete component.
Sonically, I find this idea is presented the most significantly, as this album’s sound is remarkably vast. It allows you to feel the eerie anticipation of something frightening, and the moments of odd unsettlingly low tension as well. From a less abstract angle, KING VISION ULTRA achieves this through masterful mixing that pays careful attention to all of the little details, ensuring that no sound or harmonic texture upsets the finely tuned world that they’ve built. KING VISION ULTRA displays a masterclass in sampling and sound manipulation that produced monumental basslines, enveloping noise, and phenomenally tone-setting vocals.
Even the skits are more than just solid complimentary pieces to the main songs. Instead, they are treated like essential pieces to the puzzle, playing a vital role in cultivating this complex atmosphere. For example, those “WOOUUHHHs” and the opening sounds that you hear at the beginning of the final track “Guillotine”, makes me feel nostalgic to some faded memory that may, or may not belong to me whatsoever (it also sounds like what the wheelie-poppin’ dude is doing on the cover tbh). It’s striking.
This remark related to memory leads to me my final key thought related to this album… and that is the title: An Unknown Infinite.
The title suggests the existence of a world where there is a lot of uncertainty (unknown), and the idea of something happening for an indeterminate length of time (infinite). These ideas both connect well to what this album actually gives me when I put it on.
There is an odd feeling of nostalgia that is delivered in a really fragmented way where sounds often decompose and evaporate, packaged in a production style that fails to fit neatly with any one era of hip-hop. This is an idea that further intrigues me when you take into account that this duo hails from New York, the birthplace of hip-hop where it all began, blending elements of the past and the future into one fresh new sound.
As I listen to this album, I tend to be unclear on what I’m feeling internally, or what the reference point is that I can cling on to, thereby leading me into this wormhole of slight unfamiliarity that AMANI and KING VISION ULTRA have created for us. There is a weird dynamic of the known and the unknown, the clear and the unclear, which manages to be carried through every single element of this album. Even the album cover gives me this feeling.
An Unknown Infinite feels like a lucid dream. Where the listener experiences the high-stakes feeling of living on the margins of society, juxtaposed by this sense of clarity stemming from AMANI’s lyrics… yet can’t really gain any sense of control of the situation, oddly finding themselves in this in-between state of awareness.
This unsettling feeling clashes nicely with AMANI’s lyricism that references these undeniable realities of the world that have quite literally existed forever… but speaks with a level of clear-mindedness and understanding that gives you that ever-elusive sense of control.
AMANI is genuinely empowering on his astoundingly brilliant opening verse on “Concrete Slides” with bars like, “no longer tied to the trials of emotions, violence, and hunger/owe my survival to who desires all but receives nothing”. It’s as if AMANI is showing us a way forward to break free from all of the trauma, through an awareness that is still reality-based, acknowledging the genuine difficulty ahead on the path to liberation.
Throughout this entire album, AMANI provided a lot of thoughtful perspective, but no simple answers… because none exist.
Buy/Stream An Unknown Infinite here.
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