“All of this music is inspired by God. My music-making history has been trying to channel the positive spirit in the music. When I say therapeutic and medicinal, I feel like god heals through the music. When people are sick and they need to be uplifted, they listen to music. The music that we want to create is high vibration music.”
YHWH Is Love is a 2024 studio album by Jahari Massamba Unit, a collective name for American hip hop musician Madlib and American jazz drummer Karriem Riggins. It has received positive reviews from critics.
Reception
Editors at AllMusic rated this album 4 out of 5 stars, with critic Thom Jurek writing that the music combines diverse genres, such as funk and EDM, making a "set [that] offers slippery, hypnotic grooves in a humid mix perfect for late-night gatherings or cruising the boulevard".[1] Online retailer Bandcamp published a feature on YHWH Is Love where Blake Gillespie called this music "chameleonic jazz" and drew connections with artists such as "the Mizell Brothers’ work with Donald Byrd, Johnny Hammond, and Bobbi Humphrey.[3] In Glide Magazine, Ryan Dillon characterized this work as "an avalanche of juxtaposing melodies cascade down neck-breaking drums, one element bleeding into the next for seamless hip-hop-flavored jazz" and "a clinic on tone".[2] Writing for The Line of Best Fit, Janne Oinonen rated this album a 7 out of 10, stating that "the overall impression of the effortlessly laidback YHWH is Love is a more groove-orientated and horizontally organic take on Sound Ancestors, Madlib’s 2021 solo album" and "a winningly diverse and consistently charming offering" release that is "probably too laidback to be truly essential and occasionally prone to idling in wait for the next idea to strike, but certainly worthy of closer inspection".[4] A May 3 review of the best albums of the year by Craig Jenkins of Vulture included YHWH Is Love, which he called "a genre-hopping mind-meld uniting a pair of storied indie-rap figureheads" that is "brimming with playful, mournful, wily, and beguiling compositions".[5]
