Vince Leigh’s Single Review: Last Round By IamSnap

Here’s the thing with songs about conquering your demons: the demons usually get better publicity than the songs. They arrive in leather jackets beneath flickering motel signs, behaving like they’ve hired their own cinematographer. By the time they’re defeated, you half expect them to have an album coming out. IamSnap does something smarter on Last Round. He makes the devil annoying. This devil ruins your day. He lets you sleep until 2 p.m., surveys the laundry, the kitchen, the unfinished recording and suggests you abandon the whole operation. Now that is evil. IamSnap—Shannon Elliott when paperwork demands it—has spent nearly two decades making music, films and assorted creative trouble, collecting Billboard and U.S. iTunes chart success and collaborations with Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, D12’s Swifty McVay and Curtis Young along the way.

Last Round understands that having things to do and being psychologically capable of doing them are entirely different propositions. The track begins atmospherically before a heavyweight beat arrives. Faby Beats and Gore Ocean provide the musical foundation, with Gore Ocean and IamSnap producing, and the result has substantial sonic muscle without sounding committee built. IamSnap is best when he gets specific. He treats anxiety like the world’s worst roommate: invasive, exhausting and always hanging around when you’re trying to get something done. There’s anger, profanity and humour, but also the painfully recognisable experience of knowing exactly what you should be doing while remaining unable to do it. Then Lydia Caesar arrives and installs windows in the building. Her chorus is soulful, expansive and instantly melodic. Where IamSnap sounds boxed in, Caesar sounds airborne, giving Last Round a lift that prevents its message from becoming another Fight Your Demons motivational seminar. The optimism here has dirt under its fingernails. IamSnap isn’t claiming enlightenment; he’s simply refusing to stay down. Recorded at enrec studio with Steve Newton engineering, Last Round is sleek enough for contemporary hip-hop and R&B, but human where it matters. Sometimes victory isn’t slaying the dragon. Sometimes it’s 2 p.m., the dishes are everywhere—and you get up anyway.