Dada Shiva’s E55nce may be smart but lacks cohesion

Dada made his debut with the six-track EP Fire Water in 2016, which was followed a year later by another EP, Mitsubishi Nimbus Cloud: All Terrain, in collaboration with Red Bull Studios Cape Town. The obtrusive characteristic in both projects is the excessive use of synthesisers.

Stylised E55nce, with the number five in place of the letter S, the new album's title is difficult pronounce pragmatically, like the name of the US rapper 6lack (Black); you don’t know whether to say 'six lack' or 'slack'. Dada Shiva has a taste for occult sciences such as numerology and attempts to use numbers as a link throughout his music. However, it's difficult to establish whether the listener can follow this link, because it seems to only exist in the artist's mind. Numerology suggests that 55 is an angel number. Perhaps Dada is the angel trying to communicate with his audience.

E55nce is bohemian and, much like Dada’s previous offerings, sits on a foundation of eccentric hip hop beats that alternate between boom bap and trap, while reinforced with hypnotic electronic synths.

'Child’s Play' featuring Jakinda from the duo Stiff Pap, Capetonian rapper Yusuf Abdul Karim and electro artist Thor Rixon, also from the Mother City, displays the boom-bap parity laden with 8-bit synth bubble sounds you’d find in a video game. In ‘88’, featuring guitarist Dylan Fine of Beat Sampras, Dada raps with synthesised vocals that make him at one with the trap-esque instrumentation.

The album is sonically enigmatic and features other guest appearances such as UK Rapper David XCV on ‘Shortcake’ and ‘Doughboy’ as well as Danish electronic producer Yangze on 'Wayhf'.

E55nce is not an album that everyone would appreciate. If Dada’s affinity to Dadaism is anything to go by, he has reached his objective by subverting what hip hop should sound like vocally and instrumentally. The album would be confusing to dance to but can certainly leave you smarter than you were before listening to it, mainly because of songs such as the opening track ‘Ionizing Radiation'.

E55nce lives up to Dada's alternative experimental hip hop sound, while inadvertently revealing its Achilles' heel: disjointedness. Each song sounds like a single compiled for an EP as a lead-up to a full length. In terms of song chemistry and a comprehensive through line, Dada’s EP Fire Water could have held its own as a debut album.

Dada’s principle maxim is that his sound "explores the construction of polarity through the projection of multiple personalities within each track”. While his interpretation of polarity is not too clear, his philosophy could account for the reason the album sounds like a bundle of tangled loose ends. Maybe some listeners will find their angel after all.

Preview E55nce here.