Jules & The Groove

Jules & The Groove is the smoothest project on NovelGrooves - a soul-leaning hip-hop persona whose closest reference points are the early-2000s Dutch jazz-rap of Pete Philly & Perquisite, the unhurried groove of Tom Misch, and the writing instincts of any rapper who's read more books than required.

The sound is built on a relaxed musical foundation: live-feel drums, warm Rhodes-like keys, bass that walks instead of stomps, and arrangements that leave room for the verse to do the heavy lifting. The flow is unhurried, conversational, sometimes wry, sometimes vulnerable. The writing is the project's strongest muscle - Jules is a storyteller who can move from a meeting on the Riviera to a bar about teenage regret to a self-aware monologue about running the show, all in the same record, without ever sounding like he's switching projects.

The result is hip-hop that thinks of itself as soul music, and soul music that thinks of itself as hip-hop. It's the side of NovelGrooves where craft and groove sit at the same table, and where the producer lets the song breathe.

A Jules & The Groove project by Lars Curfs. For fans of Pete Philly & Perquisite, Tom Misch, Anderson .Paak.