Taking his cues from every underwater temple level of every video game, Ras G (the hip hop nom de plume of LA’s Gregory Shorter) presents a mesmerizing piece of cyclical instrumental work with “All Is Well…” The track relies heavily on an unbreaking, crisply produced rhythmic theme, which is worked over by lower gauge psychedelic loops. Rarely breaking from form, except for a few bursts of synthetic groaning, “All Is Well…” is not so much a tribute to afrofuturism as it is a reexamination of the genre. Videogames have long been borrowing from pan-African music for a greater variance of themes, and it seems like Ras G is prepared to renegotiate the terms of that agreement as something relevant to instrumental hip hop.
