Music Review: Few Compare to Citizen Cope's Originality

Authored by Scott Goldberg on October 20, 2006 - 4:59am.

The words “unique” and “original” are too often tossed at art and music unworthy of such lofty claims, because to possess a truly unique and original style is, perhaps, the highest aim of any artist. Listening to Citizen Cope’s music, the lack of comparisons will not be obvious right away. At first you’re reminded of the blues, Cope’s smoky voice and melancholy mood hovering over every track. But his style is as much blues as it is rap, as much rap as it is reggae; in jazz terminology you might call it a “cool” approach – Cope always sings just behind the already slowed-down beat, taking his time with every word, and in that sense he lacks (gratefully) the urgency underlining most hip hop and rap today.

What Cope (a.k.a. Clarence Greenwood) brings more than most is a genuinely soulful emotion. It’s easy enough to hear, but better to see in person, his face squinting with feeling on every stanza. He wasn’t created by the labels and the music industry; He’s the same person on stage that he was when developing his style in Washington D.C. without a band or an audience six years ago.

Cope has been touring exhaustively for the last two years, playing the entire burgeoning summer festival circuit, and currently playing the entire U.S., headlining shows five, and sometimes six, days a week. He’s currently in Seattle and heads east for the next month, finishing with two shows in New York on November 28 and 29. He records for RCA, under the management of BWM, and, of course, has a MySpace page worth a glance for, at a minimum, his list of "friends."

Scott Goldberg

Samples: Brother Lee; Back Together; More Than It Seems; Somehow; Bullet and a Target