Audio Push - 'Last Lights Left' (Album Review)

Yes Audio Push by now have a formula for making projects but the results are usually fun and informative. The duo of Price and Oktane from California’s Inland Empire have been on several paths since breaking onto the scene in 2009 with their hit “Teach Me How To Jerk.” Signings to Interscope and Hit Boy’s Hits Since ’87 and the formation of their personal label, Good Vibe Tribe, have boiled down to mostly focus and concentration on their own indie set and business endeavors, and their new album, Last Lights Left, reflects their now fully embraced freedoms in life, art and work. 

Rapped by both Price and Oktane and mainly produced by Price, Last Lights Left, like their previous LP, 90951, has the group’s questioning, observatory messages plus style for miles guided by fresh mild productions and Cali-cool choruses. While AP showoff some typical braggadocio and boast of sexual exploits here and there, they’re quick to profess their love for positive peaceful living at other times. “Planet Earth is Live” pays homage to the late comedian and activist Dick Gregory, and the politically loaded “Soledad Story” drops thoughts on Bill O’Reilly, Bill Cosby, police-presence resembling martial law, the early deaths of legendary artists and anti-racism. The track perhaps grabs attention most with the group’s consensus that says, “I don’t wanna rap about cars, we teleport on Mars, and even Nas told us here the world’s ours, but now everybody wanna be stars.”   

Cupid finds romance for the guys in “Stay” and some chilling and dealing with the everyday struggle commence before “Save the Sinners,” a proper ending, spreads care, consideration and compassion to our listening ears, and power to the people. Committed to being new age in some of the best ways possible although not very much so all of the time, Audio Push here are nevertheless solid paladins (when they decide to be) for liberty, equality and integrity. They’re loyal to the essentials and principles of hip-hop music, as this Triple L album is an indie release with crafty rapping on whatever the two want to discuss, including goodness and progression for them and us. (3 out of 5 stars) 

Audio Push play it safe on debut album, '90951'

90951 by Audio Push

Don’t confuse Audio Push’s debut album, 90951, with Jay Rock’s second LP (90059) because while they both look the same, they both provide two different treats for the ears. Jay Rock’s sophomore feels a bit more embedded in the grit of the L.A. street scene whereas the long awaited 90951 album from the Inland Empire dynamic duo covers the greater diaspora of their Southern California brethren and community. Most importantly, now is the time for Audio Push, not their contemporary, to shine the most. Oktane and Price of the celebrated unit, though products of their hip-hop influences and environment, join their young progressive peers already making strides in the game with this mellow meditation that challenges the intense industry of modern society.

Before loosening up at the end, A.P. ponder what made them and how they want to help shape the world for future generations. Single mother-managed households are cleansed with “Ghetto Fabulous Filtered Water” in the opener before the regionally anthemic “Leftside” provides the time and place for the guys to dodge attempts by the powers that be to puppet-string them in the cool breezy “Control Us.” In fact, that is generally what the whole album is, cool. It’s too laid-back to be an overt protest LP, but the cool wisdom definitely goes some ways. Who knows how much more vanguard 90951 could have been in its ideologies had it not tried so hard just to be so stylish.

Audio Push have more or less saved themselves and their chances in this debut, and yes it is a lot of what we’ve already received from other new age artists, but it’s good and solid for what it stands for. The two emcees have started to enact a worldly change from within themselves, mentally, just as they should, even if they’re still holding on to one or two problematic tenets of the establishment (car love, the force of habit to keep pumping dollars into the system, etc). 90951 doesn’t shout revolution but tosses it around, more accurately, in a chill underground circle that includes Musiq Soulchild, BJ the Chicago Kid and Kent Jamz among a few others. This is a disc that transfers you into the spirits of Audio Push. Just beware that the lifestyle might feel a little borrowed.

3 out of 5 stars