Maybe one of the most enticing aspects of Ratking’s sound is the production. Eric Adiele, better known by his moniker Sporting Life, often creates beats that loop in the way you’d expect, but have something about them that sounds decidedly live all the time. It’s that live feeling present in Adiele’s beats that kind of allows Wiki and Hak, the other ⅔ of Ratking, to exercise their notably hard hitting but syncopated flows. That sound only makes it more exciting that after two successful albums as a member of Ratking, Adiele is branching out and releasing his first solo effort as Sporting Life.
The album is going to be called 55 5’s and is set to come out on September 18 via Belgium-based label R&S Records. The ten song album, which is supposed to be completely unassisted by vocals, is going to make use of a diverse set of sounds, from traditional hip-hop beats to the more ethereal breakbeat stylings of Aphex Twin (whose album Classics was actually released on R&S back in 94’) , all the way into the completely experimental, a la Arca and the like. When writing the record, Adiele expressed interest in fan-made basketball compilations, saying that he wanted to “make tracks that you could put images of athletes playing sports to.” Adiele sees the intensity and emotion of sports and parallels it to the emotions one can feel when listening to music.
55 5’s will be made available digitally and on a small run of 300 cassette tapes (R&S’s first cassettes run in 18 years). To announce the album, Adiele released a video of his Boiler Room performance. The video, shot on what looks like a VHS camcorder, is a little over an hour of Adiele musing some lucky concert goers.
The video is streaming below, and you can pre-order 55 5’s here.
