Two rising voices from opposite sides of the globe, mau from nowhere and hihi, have met in London and transformed the chaos of their new surroundings into a stunning and ambitious debut. 'Pressure', the duo's first collaborative album, is a genre-bending project that exists at the fringes of hip-hop while diving deep into emotional excavation. It's a record that feels less like a collection of songs and more like a conversation—one that is raw, unfiltered, and entirely necessary.
The opening track, 'here we are again', immediately signals that this is not a record to be taken lightly. It's a lurching, stuttering nod to the abstract school of production championed by the likes of Madlib, throwing the listener into a whirlwind of distorted jazz samples, syncopated rhythms, and voices half-submerged in noise. This sense of momentum and friction continues into tracks like 'peace:war', which slows the pace to a syrupy crawl, and 'what's all this then', which pairs melancholic absurdity with breakbeats and deconstructed guitar riffs. The beauty of 'Pressure' lies in this constant push and pull, where sonic noise and emotional clarity are in a state of beautiful, uneasy tension.
The album's power is in the way it uses contradiction to create a vivid mosaic of feeling. Tracks like 'let it pass' and the dreamy 'portals' offer moments of hushed introspection and escapism, creating space for the listener to breathe. This is expertly balanced by the explosive energy of 'a_m_h', a vibrant posse cut that spotlights some of Nairobi's finest artists, and the romantic ease of 'e6', which glides with a quiet confidence.
But for all its sonic experimentation, 'Pressure' remains deeply human. The album's emotional core is found in 'Green hill zone', where mau confronts mortality and love in one of the most raw and unfiltered moments on the record. It’s a quiet, seismic moment that grounds the project in lived experience. The closing tracks, 'miss you' and 'silly', usher things out with a soft and playful reflection, proving that levity can coexist with the weight of the world.
As the artists themselves explain, "A huge part of this project was playing telephone with a lot of the rap music we grew up on." 'Pressure' is both an homage and an evolution, a record that honours its roots while forging a new emotional vocabulary. It's a fearless debut that rewards repeated listens, not because it's hard to understand, but because it’s so full of life, chaos, and catharsis.
You can stream the new album today, and join mau from nowhere and hihi today on Instagram.
