Shades of Blues and Blakroc: Hanni El Khatib’s “Moonlight”

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,...
By    November 11, 2014

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.

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