Last year Navy Seal elevated himself to the mainstream hip-hop scene with his chart topping single “Elevated”. He promised that 2014 we would get to hear his debut album which was to be called “Word On The Street”. However, the Bulawayo rapper seems to have pulled a Dr. Dre on us and postponed the release of his album.
Don’t write him off just yet though, he has been putting in work but on a different project altogether. The rapper has been in the lab with Art Department, a hip-hop crew also from the City of Kings which is made up of rappers Robbie Illsicker, Fly & Tone Lakeside. Fly is based in Beit Bridge so he won’t be a part of this joint album, leaving Navy & the remaining two thirds of Art Department to work together on a joint album called “While U Were Sleeping” (more like While U Were Waiting For W.O.T.S) This album is most likely to drop sometime this month, and the first single “Ride Wit’ Us” will be released sometime next week. It features the beautiful vocalist Alaina on the hook and Harare based producer PHD on the instrumentation.
I had a chat with Navy a couple of days ago and he really seemed excited about this track, which I was as well soon as I watched the promo trailer to the single. Hopefully we can expect to see a music video following up the release of the single. The song “Ride Wit’ Us” , in Mr.Elevated’s own words “speaks of how they (Navy + Art Department) are an elite group who keep it real & stay true, and are the best at what they do” . “We suggest that you ride with us” Navy said as he sealed the explanation of the song. I am not about to move to Bulawayo anytime soon but if I do then I know which clique to ride with now
This joint album they are working on won’t be the 1st project that Navy & AD work on together having had a couple of tracks on Navy Seal’s “Across The Boarders” mixtape. Apparently the AD crew had been quiet for some years and now this joint album with their friend Navy seemed like an appropriate thing to do as a comeback onto the hiphop scene. For Navy Seal this might be the perfect way to create hype for his debut solo album, and that’s more good music to the people.
Most hip-hop artists from outside Harare are always talking about how artists from Harare are the only ones that get put under the spotlight. That is not going to stop these Bulawayo guys from working hard. Action. Hip hop music in Zimbabwe is growing at a rapid pace right now, big shout out to everybody contributing to that growth. If you have not started supporting local hip-hop, then I, Sharky, am asking you to Ride Wit’ Us.
Be on the lookout for “While U Were Sleeping” otherwise it will be released while you are actually sleeping. Follow @NavySeal487 on Twitter for updates.
Hip Hop!
