Lando Chill - For Mark, Your Son (2016)

Lando Chill's debut for Mello Music Group, 'For Mark, Your Son' is a life-affirming record. It's a 12-song tribute to the father who passed away when the Chicago-born and raised rapper was just three years old - the rare shout into the existential abyss that actually receives answers echoing back. It's a coming-of-age story rooted in life, death, and legacy. It reminds us how to dearly departed can leave behind an indelible light. It's the work of a brilliant 24-year-old Tuscon transplant with a wicket jump shout, who steadfastly embodies the compassion, strength, and talent of his vanished hero. When you listen to Lando Chill, you hear traces of Gill Scott-Heron, Pharoahe Monch, and The Roots. At times, his rollicking cadences and innate gift for melody feel like a one-man equivalent of The Pharcyde's Labcabincalifornia. While the album's sepulchral finale feels like the most gorgeous song TV on the Radio never wrote. But mostly, 'For Mark, Your Son' marks the ascendance of a singular talent, fusing scattered influences into a coherent vision, an artist scarred by his experiences but healing through his broken poems. This album is for those open books with pen hearts, the vulnerable and those in pain, the fatherless children too proud to ask for help because they believe their dads wouldn't raise a weak son, the mothers that lost their best friend, the fathers that never got the chance to see how bright the future looked, for the blunted that aspire for something more than what's in front of them. It's for those willing to admit their mistakes and those smart enough to start correcting them.

Track listing:

01. Lando Chill - Intro (4MYS) (1:18)
02. Lando Chill - I'm Awake (2:26)
03. Lando Chill - Early In The Morning (2:37)
04. Lando Chill - Rock Love (3:29)
05. Lando Chill - Proud (3:02)
06. Lando Chill - Save Me (1:59)
07. Lando Chill - Floating To Nowhere (3:54)
08. Lando Chill - Gospel Of The Chill (feat. Runt) (4:37)
09. Lando Chill - Find A Way (3:06)
10. Lando Chill - That's Real (3:13)
11. Lando Chill - Unenamored (3:19)
12. Lando Chill - Coroner (4:14)