Local Spotlight | “Not My Way”

Set and setting, as ever, are always key. Within the first 15 seconds of “Not My Way,” the cornerstone of Chic-style funk is the established foundation and in the opening salvo of the lyrics, weed is smoked, and lines are chopped.

Four-on-the-floor and a bassline that bubbles from tentative to propulsive are lit up like a match. Party song? Undoubtedly.

“Not My Way” is the second single from the Painting with Prostitutes EP; a project courtesy of Denver Hall and WowJus7in—two musicians who are prolific to the point of the un-trackable, let alone being genre-allergic. The feel-good-get-down vibe is complicated (read as: improved) as Denver Hall’s lyrics come across more critical and complex than mere jonesing for another central-nervous-system bling beatdown.

MVP goes to saxophonist AyyWillé, who whips out a restrained call-and-response over WowJus7in’s gradual sonic-production reveal of electric piano and percussion into the percolating mix. Good stuff, and on the level of heterodoxical-leaning funk: crucial stuff.