Platform 9¾ in King's Cross Station takes you to a magical world of wizards and adventure. That's in the Harry Potter series anyway. However, Platform 9¾ is also the title of an EP from Cza Kalu. Coming from Atlanta, GA Cza is a Nigerian rapper seeking to create his own lane and style. He does that with the Platform 9¾ EP coming in at just five short tracks but doing its' best to define who Cza is and what is important to him.First thing I notice is that the EP has a cohesive sound which is really very rare for an EP. Often times and artist just throws a few tracks together and puts the project out but that doesn't happen here. Instead the EP stays consistent throughout, showing that thought and care were put into crafting it.
Cza also selected instrumentals that worked well for the type of music he creates. There weren't any attempts at simply making a song that would be popular for following a trend instead of the content. The choice really helped play into the cohesive sound of the project. One of the cool things I found about the album is it doesn't focus on anything like drugs or murder. Instead it could be viewed as an inspirational album with tracks like "Bambinos," aimed at telling children there's a brighter future.
The biggest downside of the album that I found was Cza's flow. It was inconsistent on some of the tracks. At times it was downright sloppy. I'm pretty sure he was just experimenting and trying to find one that works for him. Since this is an EP it's not really a big deal, as opposed to if this was an album. On the flip side Cza has a really unique vocal sound because of the combination of voice and accent. There aren't man rappers that I come across, if any, that sound like Cza. Like Lil Bibby's voice has become a trademark of his beyond his flow, I expect the same to happen for Cza, just because it's so unique and brings something new to the table.
For an emerging artist the project sounds really good and shows that Cza really cares about supplying people with a positive message and good content. It's right around 15 minutes in length so it's worth the time to give it a listen and it won't take much time out of your day if you do.
You can hear Darrell on the CP Time and Powerbomb Jutsu podcasts. He also plays classic arcade games on The Cabinet
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