Forex’s “Connected” Turns 20: It Set a Pattern for My Life

I recently threw out about 95% of my physical compact disc (CD) collection. I didn’t wish to do it, but for the past 4 years they’ve been sitting in boxes in my storage unit, unopened, in a back corner—it was time.

Of course, as soon as they were gone, I immediately felt a sense of unease concerning the music collection I had just consigned to the dump. Sure, most of that music might be on streaming services, but I don’t even know all of the albums I threw away, which implies that on the subject of more obscure music, I’ll probably never hear it again. And there have been lots of of mixtapes and albums I’d recorded myself, including Little Brother’s debut album, “The Listening,” which I burned to CD using the University of Maryland-College Park’s best Ethernet connection. My version of “The Listening” featured songs that ended up on the ultimate released album, in addition to a few tracks that ended up on The Foreign Exchange’s “Connected,” which turns 20 on August 24 and, on the time, was probably the most different-sounding hip-hop albums I’ve ever heard.

The first song I heard from The Foreign Exchange, the collective of rapper/songwriter Phonte Coleman and producer Nicolay, was “Nico’s Ruin” a song I believed was on “The Listening” (because I downloaded the entire album and it was a part of that batch of songs) but it surely didn’t sound prefer it fit. When I came upon that the song was for one other, more musical project, I could not wait to listen to it because I loved “Nic’s Groove” and still do. As a musical production, it’s perfect.

The album was well worth the wait. Connected was a revelation on the project. While it didn’t sound like “traditional” hip-hop (on the time), it was a hip-hop album, through and thru. It also showed how versatile and talented Phonte was as an artist. Over a multitude of synths and melodic chords, Nicolay created the proper musical soundscape for Phonte to explore his various skill sets. From rapping and singing to adding harmonies when appropriate, Phonte was a revelation as an artist; there’s a reason Drake, probably the most famous artists on the planet, called Phonte and Little Brother inspirations. He put hip-hop in a different light. While Kanye West took hip-hop and gave every suburban kid a license to select up a mic, Connected had a neo-soul feel, but for rappers.

Music

Turns out you possibly can spit real verses over slow synths, muted drums, and a bunch of keyboard patches, which isn’t exactly latest or original in 2024, but it surely wasn’t precisely the norm in 2004. For a band trying something different, Phonte and Nicolay got here through and delivered. After listening to the album again, I couldn’t help but feel that if the identical album were released today, it could be received with even greater fervor than it was in 2004, when it was a critical darling and widely praised by media outlets.

Interestingly, The Foreign Exchange also set a blueprint for the long run of how we could collaborate without sitting in a room together. On a personal level, Damon Young and I used The Foreign Exchange as a form of North Star once we created our now-defunct, award-winning website Very Smart Brothas. Connected got here about entirely without Phonte and Nicolay ever meeting in person, but by putting the complete album together via email and fast messaging. Damon and I didn’t meet for the primary time until our first book launch party in Washington, D.C., in April 2011, three years after Liz Burr and I began the blog. We wrote and published the book together without ever meeting in person and barely talking on the phone. We put the book together in a similar way, via email and fast messaging. Although we didn’t title our book Connected, we actually could have done so, and the message would have worked just in addition to The Foreign Exchange.

I find myself returning to Connected often in 2024 since it jogs my memory of a younger, more fun time in my life. I began blogging just a few months before the album got here out; the music seemed so fun and interesting and soundtracked a few years and the most effective weeks of my life. Connected is considered one of those albums that connects me, no pun intended, to a time in my life that holds true memories. For that reason, it’ll all the time be an album that holds meaning in my life.

We are connected now and eternally.