The Yves Tumor protégée leads us beyond the total musical overload into the successful post-genre sound.
The pre-single “Lady” with rap parts by bbymutha already makes it clear: If you connect Gaika’s stylistic reference points, the result is not a simple geometric shape, but a whole network of references and genre attributions in which the British artist knows how to move like a spider. For DRIFT, Gaika Tavares, his real name, sat down with a whole bunch of artists and played the night away with them.
The clearest influence certainly had Yves Tumor alias KIDÄ, who co-produced the album and whose signature focus on emancipated drumming and clear lyrics can be easily traced along the 14 tracks. On “La Vacanza”, the only track on which KIDÄ appears as a featured guest, the exalted electric guitars typical of Tumor can be heard at the beginning after Gaika’s dancehall song. If you consider that Gaika already amalgamates dance music of all kinds, rock, funk and other black music into a successful post-genre sound, it might read like overload on paper – but it doesn’t sound like that.