Not Easy Love
Maverick Sabre & Demae / 2021.09.24 발매
"In the front room of his top floor flat in North London, Maverick Sabre (aka Michael Stafford) sits at his laptop, flicking through the clips of movies, music videos and short films that have inspired his new record.
He has always drawn sentiment and atmosphere from things he sees and the world around him, then directed them into his music.
For his new record, he’s drawn inspiration as varied as the 90s French social realism of La Haine to the hip-hop cinematography of Kahlil Joseph.
It’s been seven years since Mav first arrived on the UK scene as a fresh-faced Irish (but London born) rapper with a brassy singing voice.
Championed by Plan B, his music drew a line between the Irish, American and UK rap scenes he grew up on and the timeless blues and traditional Irish music of his family’s heritage.
His debut album, Lonely Are The Brave, was a roaring success, arriving at #2 on the UK album charts and going on to sell over 250,000 copies.
Since then he has undergone a bold and inventive evolution as an artist, into a visionary and melodic songwriter capable of telling eternal stories that critique the world around him with a shrewd eye.
His new album is dreamy and psychedelic at times, whilst also feeling haunting, gritty and rock inspired.
There is nothing he will not turn his mind to, if he feels he has something to say, from the tragedy of Grenfell to the ways in which we place our faith in false icons.
Rap may not be his biggest reference point anymore, but his hip-hop upbringing has instilled a passion for making music that is always brutally and unashamedly honest at all times.
“For me,” says Mav, “every album is about what I feel at that time, and what I feel needs to be said about society and my own personal life. It’s like a diary entry.”