Haute Rod: “Condo Dreams” – a voracious student of his medium!
“Condo Dreams” is the first single release off the upcoming project titled “The Complication” by Baltimore Hip-Hop artist Haute Rod. The track is Produced by Antonio “ToanTracks” Jones and Mastered by Grammy Award winning Mastering Engineer Chris Gehringer. Jerrod Williams aka Haute Rod (hotrod) was born on the east side of Baltimore, Md. Growing up in the infamous Lafayette Projects as a youngster Jerrod was exposed to the harsh reality of poverty and all the indulgences of street life. Throughout though, he found solace in music. An art he has taken to the next level today. And though Haute Rod lyrically (and emotionally) revisits all aspects of his previous life experiences, he tries to avoid drug talk, misogyny and the glorification of the negatives of street life.
Though his releases seem to be far and few in-between, the upshot of Haute Rod being such a voracious student of his medium is that he gets better with every release. Many major-label rap artists drop many a release and spend a many a year straining to capture the magic necessary in their flows to enchant listeners.
Haute Rod has grasped the structure of his talent and pulled together the wisdom and range to populate his releases with lyrical excellence. Something he repeats on “Condo Dreams” ft. PhllfthyBoiUrg. He’s an austere type of guy who does best when he’s cutting loose, so this track is an exercise in getting the knotty, emotional tune as sharp as the radio jingles. He sounds as wicked as Jay-Z, when Jay-Z was Jay-Z!
Haute Rod has a knack for making music that moves crowds but at the same time is capable of budging brains. He sounds leagues more animated over this soulful beat here than most of the trap-induced artists sound elsewhere.
That assertion is a celebration of his creativity. In one of hip-hop’s most populist periods, he is a divider – a loyalist to hip-hop’s original values and a conscientious objector to dominant trends which only glorify negativity. As the genre has become smoother, more rigorously structured and electronic, he has become rawer, looser and more organic.
“Condo Dreams” ft. PhllfthyBoiUrg feels as if it were made without the slightest concession to what’s happening elsewhere in the genre. It is undaunted and sumptuous, emotionally acute but plain-spoken, with an extraordinary sense of confidence pervading the song, one of the year’s most finely drawn so far – “I’ve got Condo Dreams but it’s God who I need.”
Throughout Haute Rod’s songs, there are fine examples of his lyrical and songwriting prowess, driven by social and emotional investment and pulled together by an often compelling narrative.
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