Bootie Brown, the legendary voice behind The Pharcyde and one of alternative hip-hop’s most enduring architects, returns with “UnAwake”, a wildly imaginative single that obliterates genre lines and reaffirms his place as one of music’s great sonic futurists.
Drawing from a palette that includes opera, soul, funk, experimental hip-hop, and his newly coined genre UltraHipFunkWave, “UnAwake” is anything but conventional. Instead, it feels like a lucid dream set to rhythm — cinematic, layered, and emotionally resonant.
At the heart of the track is Brown’s belief in the undisturbed dream, the audacity to imagine beyond limitation. “Sometimes the dream is what you need to get beyond the thought of people saying you can’t,” he says. That ethos pulses through every beat, every orchestral swell, and every unpredictable shift in “UnAwake.”
Produced by Fabrice Grassin, the track is built on an unconventional foundation. A haunting operatic vocal collides with live violin arrangements, only to give way to Chicago soul legend Peven Everett, whose electrifying vocals lend the track a sweaty, body-moving urgency. The result is both ethereal and grounded, a soundscape that shimmers like a hallucination but hits with the force of truth.
Lyrically, Brown moves through introspective flows and abstract reflections, guiding listeners through themes of persistence, dreaming, and defiance. He doesn’t follow the rules, he reshapes them. His delivery remains unmistakable: charismatic, off-kilter, and full of insight, still very much the poet who once turned hip-hop on its head with “Passin’ Me By.”
“UnAwake” also marks another chapter in Brown’s unstoppable creative momentum. Following Grammy-nominated collaborations with Gorillaz (“Dirty Harry,” “New Gold”) and his genre-bending work with Africa Express, Brown continues to champion global experimentation and cross-cultural artistry. His upcoming Copper Box Arena performance with Gorillaz on August 30 is yet another feather in his ever-evolving cap.
And it doesn’t stop there. Brown’s multidimensional vision spills beyond the studio. As co-owner of Store No 242 and founder of PharcydeTV, he’s building platforms that uplift independent art and fuse music with fashion and technology. He’s not just in the culture, he’s helping design its future.
Verdict: “UnAwake” is Bootie Brown at his most imaginative, a genre-warping journey that proves dreaming, like music, is still best done with your whole heart open and the rules left behind.
