Album review: No One Ever Really Dies by N.E.R.D

Experimental hip-hop: N.E.R.D is a hip-hop and rock side-project for the Happy singer Pharrell Williams, consisting of him, instrumentalist Chad Hugo and Shay Haley. While the three keep busy in their respective projects, they work together on an album every now and then — the last time being seven years ago — and collaborate with other big-ticket artistes to flex their music muscles. What comes out of that is an alternate, genre-bending sound that may either put you off or excite you with every turn of the verse. On their fifth studio album since 1999, titled 'No One Ever Really Dies' — almost an acronym for their band name — the trio has done just that, and this time the sound is not just fresh but also politically relevant. On this album, the band has collaborated with artistes like Rihanna,

André 3000

, Kendrick Lamar, M.I.A., Gucci Mane, Future and the man who is collaborating with just about every big artiste, Ed Sheeran.

The best song is hands down the first track 'Lemon' where Pharrell teams-up with Rihanna. With slick rhymes the Barbadian beauty owns the track with a lazy, nonchalant rap. And she should rap more often, because her rhymes stick with you. Next best is '1000' featuring Future. With a quick, rock-beat, the song is a mix between a protests song and a typical, auto-tuned pop song that is politically charged and takes on the white supremacist movement in America. On 'Don’t Do It', you have Kendrick Lamar sizzling like a live-wire as he raps on police brutality. With the chorus taken from an actual phrase uttered during another violent shooting in recent times, Lamar and NERD are taking aim and firing at the injustice being meted out to black communities in the US by the police. 'Kites' has Lamar back, jamming it up with MIA. Another politically charged song, this one is highly experimental the rap changing flow several times, at times even mid-verse. MIA has the final word, though, in her verse, and Indian listeners will be pleasantly surprised hearing an ‘oye chori’ line at the end of the song. On their last track, NERD has Pharrell singing in his old, high-pitched voice with Ed Sheeran. It’s a reggae track where Sheeran, sadly, doesn’t have a big part to play and merely joins in on the chorus. Overall, the 11 tracks on the album make for smooth listening and surprise you every now and then with their slick experiments with sound.