- Piano house meets modern hip-hop on these delightful edits.
- Malik da Freek is the edits alias of Malik Hendricks, another player worth knowing in the bustling New York dance music scene. This project is all about smoothness, and you get three piano house tracks that float like an expert skater at a roller disco. What makes Primetime more than just a rote exercise in piano house, though, are its samples, each taken from an '10s hip-hop artist. "Cardi" is probably the most memorable, featuring a 2017 interview with Cardi B and a creepy Tim Westwood, where she candidly discusses her bisexuality and how she never falls in love with girls—all over an instrumental with processed piano chords that imprint and fade like clouds of mist. Hendricks has the power to make an uncomfortable interview sound almost giddy.
Elsewhere, he chops up Rihanna and Future's "Loveeeeeee Song" into an Inner City-style jam with surprisingly jazzy chord changes, and flips Travis Scott on "Palm Trees," with one of those itchy-feet pitter-patter drum sections that would make it perfect for a late set wind-down. What's most striking about these tracks is how the vocals don't necessarily hog the attention—these are edits of some of the last decade's strongest musical personalities, but they're united by Hendricks' style and approach. When you can make a house edit about more than just the edited material itself, you know you've got something good.
Tracklist01. Cardi
02. Luv Sng
03. Palm Trees
04. Cardi (Kush Jones Sensitivity Mix)