Release Date: 7 November 2025
Song Count: 14
Rating: 6.6/10
Description:
From the city of Brussels emerges a unique hip-hop producer in the form of Shungu, an artist with a unique vision for his music and an execution found almost nowhere else. The hip-hop compositions of this man are far from the ordinary, as he blends in elements of jazz, guitars, harps, and arguably even psychedelia into the beats and samples he uses to create his works, especially his newest album Faith In The Album, put out last November. In spite of the presence of a lot of influences and ideas that may not flow together, Shungu lets them swim around anyways, allowing them to breathe and almost naturally reach harmony with each other.
The soundscape of Faith In The Unknown is one that is generally quite tranquil with its slower tempo and more graceful nature, but also nevertheless creative and self-indulgent, taking every moment it has to let the listener appreciate its feel. The almost off-beat sound of the rhythms at certain times express a sense of light amateurity that impacts the framing of the album in several ways, generally shaping it as a collection of almost "homemade" feeling beats. Shungu also collaborates with all kinds of rappers and singers on the album, mainly other artists of his size that don't stray too far from the scene, and he manages to match up the energies of the backing tracks relatively well with the voices and styles of these guests.
The main feature meant to draw attention for this particular piece, however, are the ways in which the hip-hop sound deviates from what one may normally expect from the genre. Though jazz hip-hop isn't actually something we have never seen before on here, the manner in which it - alongside the other unconventional tools, instruments and genres baked into this album - is implemented is a comparatively unique take on it by simply rolling with it casually instead of attempting to frame is as some sort of narrative choice or stylisation going beyond simply experimenting with sound combinations.
Faith In The Unknown as a whole is quite a feel-good album featuring an entire assortment of talented artists all falling into the umbrella of one man's laid-back and artsy production style. Though it may not be to the significant liking of everyone (partially myself included) due to its lack of willingness to necessarily "appeal" to any form of standard hip-hop is scrutinised on in these times, it's most certainly a record that deserves at least a bit of respect for daring to do what it does.