Jahari Massamba Unit is Madlib and Karriem Riggins. They released their debut album, “Pardon My French,” back in 2020, and now they’re back with “YHWH is LOVE,” a more energetic and jazzier-sounding sequel. Both Madlib and Riggins have been working on jazz and jazz-adjacent music for a long time and partnered on Madlib’s long-running Yesterday’s New Quintet projects. Madlib’s affection for and use of jazz has always been one of the things I’ve liked best about his music (you can clearly hear his reverence for the history of jazz in “Shades of Blue,” his reworking of songs from the Blue Note catalog, and throughout his Yesterday’s New Quintet and YNQ-adjacent releases), and I think Jahari Massamba Unit is probably the most focused and enjoyable expression of that affection that I’ve heard. He and Riggins are really going for it here—setting off into grooves, unfurling wild solos, exploring all kinds of different vibes and moods.
“Stomping Gamay,” the first single from the album, is a real statement. Starts with some wild drumming from Riggins and a catchy bass riff, then flute (or flute synth?), vibraphone (or something similar), and it’s out the door, running. Riggins’s drumming on this track is mesmerizing, he’s always moving, switching up his patterns, adding some some textural difference from moment to moment. Even though it’s only Riggins and Madlib, it legitimately sounds like a real band, trading space, making room for what sounds a little like a trumpet solo played over a bad internet connection (this is such a cool effect, whatever they did to get this) about halfway through the track, which then gives way to a little synth solo toward the end, and then a return to the head.
Something like “Six 8ight (Interlude)” is such a good illustration of Madlib and Riggins’s love of jazz—it feels like a snippet you’d hear cut out from a 70s-era Miles Davis live album, the band seeking something, winding down off a long song—it’s such a cool touch.
“The Clappers Cousin” and the following track, “Massamba Afundance” are two album highlights. “The Clappers Cousin” is funkier than a lot of the other stuff on the album, with a tricky beat from Riggins and some fluid guitar from Madlib, along with some really lively electric piano. There’s chatter in the background, it’s all easygoing, and the trumpet comes in and takes the spotlight with a great, intermittent solo. This one feels so much like a jam, like fucking around and stumbling into something cool—it’s so compelling.
“Massamba Afundance” starts off with massive-sounding percussion, whistles, manifold noise, chatter. And then, around 47 seconds in, a sweet, stately piano phrase, like a little Ahmad Jamal riff, comes in. The percussion gets wilder, disrupted, as the song goes on, the whistles louder, more urgent, and then the Jamal riff to close it out. Gorgeous tune.