IMAKEMADBEATS x Butta Verses: Daylight EP

I’ll take a late pass on the emcee known as Butta Verses. The first time I really heard of him was on Baron Von Alias & MistaBreeze’s The Great & The Magnificent about six months ago. As it would be, Butta has been around for a good minute. He got his break when De La Soul’s Maseo got a hold of one of BV’s mixtapes and then signed him to his Bear Mountain label. Verses found himself touring as the opening act for De La Soul on at least four separate occasions and also hitting the road with heavyweights like Common and John Legend. IMAKEMADBEATS is a Brooklyn-based producer who has worked with the likes of Roc C, Rapper Big Pooh, Black Milk, Von Pea, Hezekiah and MidaZ the Beast, among others.

The two have combined forces to bring forth The Daylight EP which true to form, spans six tracks and only clocks in around 22 minutes or so. On the opening track, BV speaks to the listener, refuting the old cliche that “Everyday is a chance to learn something new”. Instead, he reveals that he spends a lot of days “not learning a goddamn thing”. He implores the listener to take a journey with him, a journey that is designed to open hearts and minds and touch people.

After casting ego and “all other dumb shit” aside, the journey can now begin. “Awake” features Mylodic and J. Freedome and encourages the listener to find the light within themselves and let it shine outwardly. “Join Me” features D. Schwartz on the track as the two go back and forth about the benefits and drawbacks of any sort of “healing”. BV speaks on all the time wasted while “chasing man-made money and miscalculated worth”. He pushes a new agenda but finds resistance from others. For example: “Ayo B, sometimes I be like muthafuck the healin’/schemin’ and havin’ thoughts of teamin’ with the villain”.

A few weeks ago, “How Is Your Soul” started popping up in the blogosphere as the first single from Daylight. The track addresses those who have sold out or those who feel tempted to sell out to attain a certain status in life. Isabella Du Graf provides the hook while Butta Verses expounds on a handful of would-be “Hopeless” situations.

The EP comes to a close with “Healing Factor”. Here, BV claims that the healing is working on him and others as they are all waking up one by one. I’ve got to admit, for such a short project, Daylight manages to keep its focus. Other projects of this size can usually be sniffed out as just some random songs that were thrown together for the sake of releasing them and calling it an EP. IMAKEMADBEATS’ production fits Butta’s verses fairly well as BV never overpowers the beats and NeMo manages to never really upstage or overwhelm Verses.

Daylight is actually the first of what will be two concept EPs. The next one, entitled Nightlight is expected to drop sometime in 2011 and will feature rhymes from MidaZ the Beast instead of Butta Verses. It should be interesting and if Daylight is any indication of what listeners have to look forward to, then both EPs should fare rather decently.