Album Review: Follow Lightshow As He Takes You Through Kalorama Heights

When I first heard Lightshow’s Kalorama Heights, I said, “Damn! You going in like that!”. Lightshow’s debut is an instant hit. You can tell he has put his heart behind this production, and it is a worthy show. It sparkles like a cosmic, urban city; streets and stoops shining in the sky with the stars and smiles of everyday people.

Kalorama Heights is a love letter to Lightshow’s city, in the heart of D.C., and details his come-up and chronicling the day-to-day life of the less-fortunate as they strive to make it in the nation’s capitol. Washington D.C. is a strange place in perspective. It is filled with the most affluent, powerful people in America, but also holds severe poverty and inaccessibility to health and education. How these two worlds collide and co-exist is what drives tracks like, “Shoot For The Stars”, “Pay Attention”, “The Night Shift Theory”, and “When I Fell”. Lightshow delivers his verse with importance. He has a stamping flow; as if each lyric is a declaration and fact that you must acknowledge as life. Note, Lightshow is not about teaching you how to live as much as showing you how you already do or, at least, how others do. “1000 Ways”. “Stuck In My Ways”, and “Weight On My Shoulders” are fearlessly societal and spiritual in frames, which is why I adore Lightshow. He represents the heart of Hip Hop’s ultimate goal; to reflect society until it betters it. While many rappers, see Hip Hop as a way to mold cultures until money is made, there are those who want to use this genre as a powerful, empowering tool. Now, I do not judge anyone trying to make money, but I do admire anyone who makes morals a greater purpose.

Now more than ever we need artists to do what art does; speak to humanity. Lightshow does this by arranging his tracks with twinkling synths and digi-beats that makes you feel like you are riding a spaceship through every planet only to land in an earthy base. The result is a sonically sci-fi undercurrent that addresses the weirdness of life. How can the rich live by the poor and ignore their plight? How can a skin’s color matter so much that a soul could be made to mean nothing? How can people cry for love but then give up their hearts for money? All these questions rise in Kalorama Heights, and Lightshow is the perfect orchestrator. For More Information On LIghtshow And To Buy Kalorama Heights Click Here.