Owusu & Hannibal

Danish modernists <a href="spotify:artist:0riqlNpYjUZFzdz0OlhkUi">Philip Owusu</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:0qVb1coEo0OVOpP9kphf6U">Robin Hannibal</a> are among a handful of artists -- <a href="spotify:artist:6ASGmWCYupa0CXGtsDdYSI">Jamie Lidell</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:68P6JiHWJsv5VqfLPchS1n">Eric Lau</a>, Sa-Ra Creative Partners, and <a href="spotify:artist:1ooAqaFu4Ac3BO2HpL4V2R">Henrik Schwarz</a> are some others -- working to find a way forward for soul music and R&B in the 21st century by blending it with house, broken beat, trip-hop, and other forms of electronica. Both Copenhagen natives, although they consider themselves international citizens first and Danish second, <a href="spotify:artist:0qVb1coEo0OVOpP9kphf6U">Hannibal</a> (formerly of jazzy hip-hop collective <a href="spotify:artist:6Wp3XxRvhXETGCDFBsHBsk">Nobody Beats the Beats</a>) and <a href="spotify:artist:0riqlNpYjUZFzdz0OlhkUi">Owusu</a> (a vocalist of Ghanaian descent, briefly part of the house duo Owusu & Green, who released one 12" on Naked Music) were introduced by a mutual friend, quickly hit it off over overlapping musical interests -- in particular their shared love of <a href="spotify:artist:66XuLc224VwkhDVuPMZL9c">Sly Stone</a> -- and began working together in early 2005. Their first collaborative production, the moody broken beat clunker "Delirium," caught the attention of the groove-centric indie Ubiquity Records, who released it as a 12" that November. The full-length Living With... followed a year later, featuring a dozen originals and a glistening cover of <a href="spotify:artist:3oDbviiivRWhXwIE8hxkVV">the Beach Boys</a>' "Caroline No," produced and performed almost entirely by Owusu & Hannibal, who remain a completely studio-bound project. A smooth, substantially downtempo, but futuristically funky full-length that oozed sophistication but also displayed a distinct playful bent and garnered comparisons to everyone from <a href="spotify:artist:0IVcLMMbm05VIjnzPkGCyp">J Dilla</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:336vr2M3Va0FjyvB55lJEd">D'Angelo</a> to <a href="spotify:artist:59luKpdal8UwxcuLJNoKwS">Scritti Politti</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:6P7H3ai06vU1sGvdpBwDmE">Steely Dan</a>, the album found favor with the tastemaking likes of <a href="spotify:artist:4fH73bVIwM24QrBqjTrhAA">Gilles Peterson</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:5hv2fNEDLZ3qB1War7mVlo">Trevor Jackson</a>, and <a href="spotify:artist:3rheA53cr3B53FI9xbn4x7">Morgan Geist</a>, who had contributed a remix to the "Delirium" single and later tapped <a href="spotify:artist:0riqlNpYjUZFzdz0OlhkUi">Owusu</a> to sing for <a href="spotify:artist:3KTzs16kNylBR78QZSkiyx">Metro Area</a> on their first-ever vocal track, "Read My Mind." ~ K. Ross Hoffman