It's not every day we get a track that opens up with a Johnny Depp monologue from a Hunter S.Thompson film, but this Tayyib Ali single featuring the production work of Denver-based producer Adam Snow opens up with just that, and it's quite a fitting audio snippet for such a solid track. Tayyib Ali transitions away from the fuzzy opening notes with some crisp vocal work, and his words move at a decent clip while he lets the beat and background textures paint the perfect sonic landscape to work off of. Every once in a while, the monologue pops up again, but it's never intrusive, and, at times, it acts as a welcome interlude for Tayyib to collect his breath alongside the listener collecting their thoughts and regrouping for the next verbal onslaught of precisely linked sentences. Both Adam and Tayyib are no strangers to the blogosphere, and each have had their own individual successes respectively, but this collaboration might just be the type of synthesis that propels both of them to greater heights. "Till I Die" is a solid piece of hip-hop, and while both of these names deserve your attention on an individual basis, this track is going to really bring both of their fan bases together, really showing off exactly how versatile they can be as creators.
Tayyib Ali