Wesley Johnson-AKA WesdaRuler-knows the highs of artistic and personal fulfillment and the deep lows of struggle and burden. Which is to say, he's like most folks. Ocean Drive is more than likely the first exposure the world at large will have to Johnson and, coincidently, it's no small matter that it's on Ocean Drive that we find him most exposed. The Athens, GA beatsmith has spent years making his distinctly idiosyncratic music which has included time spent making headphone heavy boom bap to collectively conscious psychedelia. It wasn't until a couple of years ago that his voice was ever heard on his recordings and it surprised so many longtime listeners that he was asked more than once who the MC was. Once he unleashed his lyrics, though, there really was no turning back. Although deftly skilled in the lab and a solid producer for multiple collaborations -neither of which have slowed down or show any signs of receding from his heavily scheduled calendar-WesDaRuler is a man, paradoxically, transitioning while arriving.
Listen here:
But what of the tunes? Ah, yes! There's the bedsit De La Soul-ism of "Stay At Home", the get up and go dance floor mechanics of "Let Da Music Play", and the Lyricist Lounge groove of "LoseIt4Tonite". The central theme of Ocean Drive, though, is encapsulated on the affirmative declaration "GeturAssintheCar". Johnson is addressing himself but making his promises public. He's true. He's there, he makes time, and he suffers silently but recognizes that at some point this becomes indulgence. He is, in short, wide awake. And while Johnson cuts his own artistic and stylistic swath, Ocean Drive is no less a transitional and transformative piece of work for the artist himself than Marvin Gaye's 1971 LP What's Going On. Just like that landmark album, the title of which is both a question and statement, Ocean Driveworks on two levels.Videos