Written by Skyler Danes
Jak Hellington’s Sunny Side Up project dropped January 22nd and Jak & I went live on Facebook to stream the album and dig into some of the tracks. Peep the 48-minute listening session here.
The project is available now on bandcamp and you can pick-up a physical CD along with the digital download. The album artwork was provided by Jesse of Black Cloud Tattoos.
Contributions to the album’s beats came from both sides of the country with BC-based Moka Only (Urbnet) providing the instrumentals (and some vocals) and Nova Scotia-based DJ Uncle Fester (Black Buffalo Records) doing most of the project’s cuts, mixing & mastering. The two Canadian legends combined their skillsets to create a truly harmonious album that plays beautifully front-to-back. Moka brings his trademark laid back jazz/funk feel while Fester gives the project that hip-hop edge with his dope cuts and mixing techniques.
The 9-track album (10 if you copped the EGGStended Edition which includes an unreleased track by the Original Beatsters) contains 3 vocal features; the aforementioned Moka Only and longtime associate MLNY donate their vocals chords to Sadness, while I make an appearance on Grounded and of course the OB’s bonus track.
Jak also went all out on the visuals for this project with 4 videos from CT Media (Grounded, Paper Planes, PB&J and the unreleased Fryin’ Pan) and an animated music video for the album’s ‘title’ track ‘Sunny Side’ from Baked Clown Animation (recently released alongside the album).
Be sure to give this project a proper front-to-back listen as it is very much a complete album that transitions easily from song to song. Dare I say that it has that ‘post-pandemic’ feeling as it carries tones of solitude and sadness while combating those vibes with a positive perspective and a comfort that comes with going through something together. It’s definitely my favourite of Jak’s releases (so far) and I think I’m going to have this one in rotation for quite some time. Keep that Sunny Side Up! 🍳
Support Jak Hellington and great independent Canadian hip-hop by picking up your copy now: Sunny Side Up (EGGStended Edition)
Album details:
Jak Hellington – Sunny Side Up (Eggstended Edition)
Sonic Waves by Moka Only
Brass on Track 8 by Moka Only
Tracks 1,2,3,5,6,8,9 Mixed by DJ Uncle Fester
Tracks 4 & 7 Mixed by Resound Studio
Cuts on Tracks 1,3,5 by DJ Uncle Fester
Album Artwork by @jesseinstagraham (IG)
Album Design by Jak Hellington
Executive Producer : Jak Hellington