Repping the streets of Alexandra while outfitted with the wings of STAY LOW RECORDS, singer-songwriter and rapper Lawrence Harvey Ofentse Mashiloane, customarily known as Marcus Harvey, has taken a leap of faith with his second LP Now You Know Me, the follow-up of his 2020 debut I Am Marcus Harvey. Diving headlong into the unknown shrouded in the mist of anticipation from his audience and the ever-present specter of the sophomore slump artists often fall victim to, Harvey’s newest bundle of tunes is as much a navel-gazing opus as it is a piece of contemplative artistry that appreciates external beauties and condemns the extrinsic cruelties of life in equal measure.
Now You Know Me is a hybrid album that straddles the line which separates convention and the unorthodox without ever favouring a particular side over the other. Throughout the ten-song journey, the ecosystem of the production sings with progressive R&B melodies, rumbles and tumbles with the wildness of hip-hop-inspired tempos and stagnates with the rustic stillness of soul-touched acoustic and bass guitars. Guided by the likes of Fiji Mageba, Don Marco, BigLesForReal, and Shooterkhumz, the beat selection is deliberately subtle, sound, and sombre, allowing Marcus’s pen to either plumb the depths of misery from lived experience or to aspire for the heights of romance that complete a man’s world.
Now You Know Me album artwork | SUPPLIED
Curt as the album is, Now You Know Me doesn’t spin like a mixtape or an extended play, although it does contain traces of both in its makeup. In its brevity it mimics the traditional EP and its aversion from polished sonics gives it a tape-ish feel. However, where the EP leaves the listener unsatisfied and where the mixtape may maroon the mind in an island of confusion due to the lack of focus, Harvey carefully negotiates these pitfalls with his album. As short as the project is, Marcus weaves Sepedi narratives that cover themes such as selfish ambition (“Save Myself” and “Day Job”), romanticism (“Malume” and “Fountains”), spirituality (“Sechaba”), identity and self-image (“Legendary Living”), and hardship and resilience (“Lerato”) to craft an anthology which is cinematic and scaffolded with structure and cohesion from start to finish.
The strength of Harvey’s artistry – the solder that glues the whole shebang together – is his paradoxical ability to display a great deal of urgency while sauntering through his songs with the coolness of a man whistling at the beach. Perhaps this could be due, in part, to the chosen one complex he operates from – a contemplation he alludes to on “Legendary Living”. When the Johannesburg musician operates from this purview, there’s a certain level of authority he speaks from that allows him to pass judgements on what’s good and what isn’t without making him come off as high-handed. The peak of this superpower is best displayed on “Lerato”, a narration that paints a black-and-white representation of the harsh realities of life testing the unbreakability of the human spirit wiling to get up and push through the challenges.
Check out “Lerato” below:
Marcus, on Now You Know Me, is more than simply a songbird, and he colours his music with enough variations of lights and shades to escape the curse of being pigeonholed as a traditional hip-hop artist. The best way to mark STAY LOW’s latest investment is to brand him as a voice.
Packed with spiritual appeals, love letters, and meditations to pick oneself up during those inevitable dark hours, Now You Know Me, is not a feast. It’s padkos, food for the road light enough to sure keep the listener on the move but filling enough to the point of not feeling like it was a waste of time digesting the album by the time “Rainy Days” stops playing.
Listen to Now You Know Me:
