My Good Friend Mohee is a crate digger’s dream come true. It's soulful in the way the sun pokes through the clouds on a crisp autumn day.
Nevermind that 19 year old chazaiya, author and composer of My Good Friend Mohee is from “the place where the sun don’t shine” – presumably his home town Canberra. But these beats could easily be from the hard drives of any great New York producer; gritty but packed with emotion, sprawling but with a considered virtuosity. Dusty records of yesteryear are breathed new life; hooky guitar lines or vocal samples peak out behind bars and in between verses, or fully untangle themselves at the end of songs. Theatrical strings and choirs sing as if they were beamed in straight from heaven itself.
chazaiya is undoubtedly an accomplished producer, but on My Good Friend Mohee he finally steps out from behind the sampler and onto the mic. Moving with a quiet confidence, “I walk funny and my voice weak/but still everybody listen when that boy speaks,” chazaiya is adaptable in delivery and flow. He channels the introspective wistfulness of MIKE; on other tracks, the more measured deadpan of mafiosos like Roc Marciano.
My Good Friend Mohee doesn’t simply reference the greats, but has a decidedly next-generation bent to it. Cloud rappers SLEEPR and Sidney Phillips bring a sly new school energy to their respective features. And there’s a sense of ‘zoomer’ consciousness to chazaiya’s lyrics, a recurring counterweight to the playful bravado of the record, “I feel guilty every time I try to talk about me.” To chazaiya, “the better question, is why aren’t you anxious?,” especially when global warming, genocide in Gaza, and AI is involved.
It’s a genuine and very human uncertainty, yes – but never defeatist. “I never felt so urgent /Trying to fuck up the wizard ‘hind the curtain.” My Good Friend Mohee is an honest, warm and endlessly exciting record; chazaiya hopefully only just getting started.
Words by Lindsay Riley