Rating: NNN
Miles Jones almost didn’t have a choice about going into music. His father, Deadly Hedley Jones, pioneered urban radio in Toronto by doing the first live broadcasts of mix shows from nightclubs back in the late 80s, and his grandfather helped build Studio One in Jamaica. His dad passed his massive record collection down to his son, and you can hear fragments of that history sampled throughout his debut album of back-to-basics hiphop. Considering that this was originally his university thesis, the production is pretty tight and professional-sounding, although style-wise it’s much closer to underground hiphop than to the bling-and-rims crowd. If you like your hiphop steeped in tradition, you’ll likely dig this, but it would be nice to hear some more contemporary sounds in there, too.
MJ plays the Richmond Saturday (June 10) at 10 pm.
