SERENGETI – C. A. B. [free album]
C.A.B. is pretend, except for the most bruising parts. Those are real. So are the red-eyed full-moon emotions. So are most of the stories, except for the part when Serengeti pulls a shotgun out in a beautiful home to blow his brains out. That is false. This is what is known. Between 2009 and 2011, Serengeti came to Berkeley to record with Jel and Odd Nosdam, at the latter’s Berkeley cottage studio called Burnco.
These are among the first songs that the trio ever recorded, meeting for the first time, just doings raps. The four sessions yielded enough material for three albums: C.A.R., the Kenny Dennis EP, and finally, C.A.B. These are not leftovers. These are songs about love: wanting love, needing love. They are bluesy howls, dim-lit poems, disintegrating memories, permanent slumps, rank smells, brief encounters, wine-drunk distortions, collapsing lives, broken contracts, 80s pop culture flashbacks, fitful nights of sleep. Love songs, y’know.
Jel and Odd Nosdam produced it. Jel did the cuts, Nosdam did the mixing. Doseone raps once. Matthewdavid did the mastering. Serengeti did the heavy damage. Hop in.