A Recent Echo From The Past
Lucius Echo releases a cover of Frank Ocean’s ‘Novacane’.
This is my first chance exploring Lucius Echo’s music through his new single ‘Novacane’.
When listening to the ‘Novacane’, here are questions I have in regards to Lucius Echo’s music: how does he sound? His voice, I mean; what does his beats sound like? And, what is his lyrical content? The themes, I mean.
First up: what is novacane? When I search on Google, I’m shown Frank Ocean’s song, ‘Novacane’. This makes me realize that other musicians have sung about novacane before.
It takes me another site to explain that novacane is a drug used by dentists when working on patients. With that explanation, I gain an understanding on what singers be trying to achieve when they sing about novacane.
‘Fuck me good, fuck me long, fuck me numb’, sings Frank Ocean. I take it to mean that the love of a woman, or sex with a woman, or just sex in general, is some sort of drug – or novacane: something to make people forget about their troubles in life.
So, what’s troubling Lucius Echo? Well, we definitely cannot stretch ourselves that far.
As I listen to Lucius Echo’s ‘Novacane’, I note how similar it is to Frank Ocean’s. Then it hits me: ‘Oh, it’s a cover!’
Then I am reminded of the email Lucius Echo’s manager, Corey King, sent me, in which he said ‘Novacane’ was the fifth cover of other musicians’ songs they had released.
Then I’m left thinking how out of touch I am with Hip hop. ‘Novacane’ was a single from Frank Ocean’s 2011 mixtape, Nostalgia, Ultra.
What then do I think of Lucius Echo’s version? Perhaps a bit rougher than the original, but Frank Ocean himself might be pleased with it, since in the same song, he sang against how music had become all too polished and all too Hollywood.
Lucius Echo has attached himself to an acclaimed artist, but my questions on what his lyrical content and how he really sounds will have to be answered some other time!