Waajeed - BPM

All Music Guide

A Detroit producer with strong personal and professional ties to fellow Motor City dwellers Jay Dee and Slum Village, Waajeed is an upandcomer only in the sense that he has yet to take a full step from out of the background. BPM is a remarkably tight set of instrumental productions; in a blindfold test, casual underground heads might confuse a good percentage of it with the work of Jay Dee the aesthetics and dynamics are similar, with plenty of crispness in the hihats, snares, handclaps, and finger snaps but it's otherwise apparent that he has his own imprint to leave. Oftentimes, it's not the actual beats that make his tracks click “Elzhi" is the best example, working the spacedout keyboard outro from the Steve Miller Band's “Fly Like an Eagle" into a web of guitars and a buried femalevocal refrain. And even when the tracks are relatively spare, containing only two or three elements, there's not a moment when you're left to think that rhymes would be beneficial. The CD version adds... a handful of tracks not available on the vinyl, and some copies were packaged with a second mixed disc containing material from splinter projects and collaborations. Two tracks come from Waajeed's Platinum Pied Pipers group, who had recently inked a deal with Ubiquity. - Andy Kellman , All Music Guide Read more Less