Max Bell is looking for a spoonful.
Hanni El Khatib likes hip-hop. See his website for the pictures of Outkast and vintage Mac Dre album covers. For aural evidence, listen to his latest single, “Moonlight.” The title track of his next album — out via Innovative Leisure in January of 2015 –“Moonlight” sounds as if it was made for the Black Keys produced (and Dame Dash financed), hip-hop meets blues rock album that was Blakroc. The RZA influence is undeniable, there in the pounding percussion, lugubrious low-end, and recurring, Ginsu-like guitar stabs . Thankfully, Khatib is a much better singer than RZA proved to be on “Telling Me Things”.
Lyrically, Khatib reprises his role as one of the best modern day bluesmen. The tropes are the same — numbered days, moaning at midnight, and a near masochistic predilection for wicked women — but Khatib’s phrasing is his own (i.e. “Shake me like a doll in a pit bull’s mouth”). In a perfect world, the rest of Moonlight will be as good or better.
The recently released “Moonlight” music video is below — it’s dark, suspenseful, and features several trips to Wal-Mart. A remix with GZA is in the works. Innovative Leisure, please call Dame Dash. Someone needs to.