The Sweetest of It All, MaLLy’s latest full-length offering and collaboration produced entirely by Last Word is a 14 track opus of personal and breezy expressions over a lush, colorful and futuristic-soul soundscape from the 70’s and 80’s with a light touch of boom bap nostalgia. Throughout the album, MaLLy calmly explores and identifies the layers of his humanity through the lens of joy, resilience, and equanimity. The south Minneapolis rapper confidently champions true liberation, his Blackness and sobriety as some of the Sweetest elements that the Creator has gifted him in this life.
Miraculously, the album was birthed and completed worlds apart with MaLLy recording in Minneapolis while Last Word tirelessly sampled and chopped an array of audio textures from his new home in New Zealand. Although on opposite sides of the earth, both artists remained creative, reconnected on The Travelers Tour w/ Brother Ali in 2022 and collectively vowed to create an album that had its own sound, followed no trends and embodied the essence of wholeness like so many Hip-Hop classics that shaped their lives.
From start to finish, the duo fearlessly tap into new territory and design a space that is much lighter, expansive and uplifting than their gritty and experimental collection from 2014, The Colors of Black. Fast forward 10 years later, and it is clear both MaLLy and Last Word’s energy is in sync, refined and more mature.
MaLLy’s wisdom of years past, smooth flows, subtle wordplay and succinct content meld naturally with Last Word’s alluring production on the space age sonics of “New Year, New Wave” or funky-organ laced “Dreaming” and the moody and misty “100 Heartbreaks.” Whether the emcee is opening his heart or attempting to put it back together, in solidarity or comfortable in solitude, it might be safe to say that MaLLy is reinvigorated and focused with his most purposeful content and body of work to date.
The Sweetest of It All is rap, it’s soulful, it’s rich, it’s blue and it’s Black. A complete manifestation of balance, inner peace and growth.
The Sweetest of It All is out now
Guitar by Jeremy Ylvisaker on tracks New Year, New Wave, Summers on The Southside, Bigger Peace and Freetime
Artwork & Layout by Keith Williams
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