That's The One

First Word Records is proud to bring you 'That's The One'; the new single from Essa & Pitch 92.

The uptempo track is a standout from the duo's forthcoming album, Resonance. It follows the posse cut 'HeavyweightS' and the smooth, reflective 'Right Now'.

Combining Essa's insightful lyrics with Pitch 92's soulful production, the album is emotive and relatable. But the duo wanted to express the joy, as much as the pain. So the summertime bounce of 'That's The One' is designed to uplift.

In Essa's words:

"Maybe this is my medicine for monotony - the pen is healing (penicillin) when it's spilling philosophy".

The track captures the feeling of elation at finding peace through personal growth:

"Decade of therapy in, steady and settling".

A lyricist, lawyer and a Londoner, Essa initially released music under the name Yungun in the early noughties, in the midst of UK hip hop's own "golden era". He earned praise from artists such as Nas and Mark Ronson, and performed and recorded with such luminaries as De La Soul, Wu-Tang Clan, Guru, Slum Village and Pharoahe Monch.

His classic debut album 'The Essance' originally dropped whilst he was at law school, 20 years ago (which was recently given a full re-issue on First Word). This was followed with a collaborative album with DJ Mr Thing ('Grown Man Business'), then some years later with 'The Misadventures of a Middle Man' in 2014. Essa also released a track on Juneteenth 2020 entitled 'Justice', as a powerful reaction to George Floyd and the BLM movement. It saw support from the likes of Gilles Peterson, and raised money for an assortment of access-to-justice organisations.

Joining Essa on the boards throughout this project is acclaimed producer and DJ, Pitch 92.

Born in Dublin in 1992, Pitch grew up in Germany & Switzerland, where the sounds of Madlib & Dilla fired up his neurons. Under the encouragement of friends ASM, he began experimenting with an MPC at the ripe old age of 12. He relocated to the UK in the late noughties, where he was quickly engulfed into the Manchester hip hop scene, becoming a longtime member of The Mouse Outfit, touring across Europe and featuring heavily on their first two albums.

Since going solo in 2017, he's released full hip hop & soul album projects with Iyamah, Jerome Thomas (Melting Pot), Verb T (High Focus), Confucius MC (HHV), Illaman (Potent Funk) and MC DRS (Space Cadet), as well as two solo albums ('Intervals' & '3rd Culture') and production work for artists such as Ocean Wisdom, Jehst, Foreign Beggars, The Four Owls and First Word family, Ruby Wood and Tyler Daley (Children of Zeus), to name just a few!

This new project from the duo is co-produced, mixed and mastered by Viva Cee, an extraordinarily versatile up and coming writer/producer, known for fusing international sounds with contemporary Black music styles.

Essa sheds light on the back story behind the track:

"This was one of the final songs that we wrote for the project, and one of the only ones where the concept for the track preceded the music. The theme of the album (Resonance) is all about connecting through shared sentiment - finding sounds and words that resonate. That theme gave us soulful, poetic, vulnerable tracks like previous single "Right Now". But we didn't want the album to feel too heavy. So I asked Pitch for some uplifting music to base a new track off. He knocked out an early version this beautiful beat and the verses came to me within minutes, literally. It was the most natural and swift writing process of any of the tracks on the album - possibly of my whole career. I recorded it straight away, to capture the joy and excitement - much of what you hear is from the first take. Later, Viva Cee laid down some additional instrumentation and Luv'Rell added her distinctive backing vocals, to round it all off and voila – That's The One!"

'That's The One' is released digitally on June 28th, with the album 'Resonance' scheduled for release on digital and vinyl, August 2nd 2024.