Synesthesia Review: Nasty C - Strings and Bling
Hip-hop's hyena delivers a sophomore album that ticks all the right boxes of a brilliant album.
Strings and Bling brings forth a newfound maturity and shows that Nasty has an impeccable palette when it comes to beat selections. Production comes from everywhere in South Africa; from Tweezy and Gemini Maejor to Nani Chehore and Zino D. That means, lyricism aside, this album is stacked with quality instrumentals.
The album is also a lot more fluid than he's debut. The transition from Jungle to No Respect to Legendary makes all 3 sound like one song, a really good one at that. Flexing isn't the only thing Nasty does throughout as he also bares he's soul on the albums deeper cuts. The Rowlene assisted SMA and Kaien Cruz assisted Everything are clear cut examples.
The sole hip-hop feature comes from A$AP Ferg on lead single, King. He more than does justice to the song and didn't treat this as just another verse. Nasty pretty much holds the album down and that really does anchor he's place in the music scene. He's always been lyrical and it's no different here. There's clever one liners and full one bars scattered all over the album.
The album is less an hour and is perfectly listenable at any hour and definitely bests Bad Hair by a country mile.