Say It Again is the latest single from New Zealand’s finest hip hop artist Scribe and it sees him at his most bombastic ever. With P Money being elevated to ‘Executive Producer’, elusive and relatively unknown Auckland producer Fire & Ice has been handed the reins and he does not disappoint. Taking cues from production on recent Jay-Z and Kanye albums, Fire & Ice brings a huge horn section that adds a very funky dance element to the track. Prominent also are some off beat gunshot snares and a roughed up broken beat that Scribble rhymes to very easily.

Speaking of Scribes MCing, he starts with a “We gonna get on down now”, announcing the tracks intentions for the dance floor. Scribe also takes cues from Jay-Z and really wears his influences on his shoulder with an upbeat couple of verses of ‘don rap’ that echo Jigga’s “yeahs” and vocal stylings, and even name checks The Black Album’s single Dirt Off Your Shoulder. His “git-git-git-git down” breakdown does also sound a lot like Mr. West, but he pulls it off by keeping it grounded through tight verses without too much extravagance. The good thing about Scribe’s verses is that he isn’t afraid to drop some local NZ references such as being “the Peter Jackson of rap, my album is King Kong” which is great to hear as he does have that American inflection to a lot of his rapping.

Gluing the whole track together are the grandiose vocal choruses of Tyra Hammond. This Auckland songstress quotes her influences as Sharon Jones, Beyonce and Alicia Keys and by the sounds of things can keep with all three. Her Rn’ B diva chorus lines complements Scribe’s rap choruses perfectly and her rhythm in keeping to the hip-hop beat is pretty much flawless. All in all a great return by the boy from Christchurch, a fantastic single and having heard the whole of his sophomore effort Rhyme Book, it just could be the best song off the album.

The B-Side is the first track from the Rhyme Book album Jeremiah 1, and starts with another Kanyesque dreamlike stings, and we hear a young scribe telling his mum he’s gonna be a rapper. This is Scribe’s ode to his beloved hip hop and goes down a treat with a brilliant couple of lines, “I’ve got B-boys for feet, spray cans for hands/ Got a microphone mouth, yeah! You know who I am/ I’m hip hop/ I got turntables for eyes, MCs for ears/ When it comes to music there aint nothin’ to compare to hip hop.” With huge orchestral strings and fractionally more subtle horns, Jeremiah 1 is another great effort from the Scribbler.

Check out the clip here…