Denzil Porter recently released his first official album Semantics of Mr. Porter.  I’ve been sitting with the album these past couple of weeks and am impressed with every listen.  There’s three storylines around the album, and their all centered around ambition.

The first storyline is the album itself, and what Denzil has undertaken in putting this project out.  Denzil has always been known as a lyrical genius, and the BarKING doesn’t disappoint not only with his metaphors and wit but with his story telling as well.  It’s never easy trying to put a project together.  It’s also difficult to write and embed skits into an album, and is something most rappers avoid doing.  With Semantics of Mr Porter, Denzil has not only written and performed the skits, he’s essentially released a simultaneous project on this record.  The album itself is an ambitious undertaking, a risk that we feel has definitely paid off and shows that this rapper from the North Bronx is on his way to cementing his legacy and imprint on the culture.

The next ambitious storyline is Denzil’s journey for success.  It’s a journey we can all relate to. Denzil talks about the changes in his life, how having a daughter has changed his perspective, and even looks into the abyss of what coulda been if the most important people in our lives weren’t in it.  This journey is filled with questions, doubt and bravado, celebration and yearning, pensiveness and aggression. It’s an incredible storyline, as we look into the mind of Denzil.  We an artist that has accomplished so much but is also just getting started.  We hear the striving for more and the confidence in knowing where you’re from.  These juxtapositions are what make the album great, because it has you take a look at your own life and journey, it resonates with you because this could be your story as well.  To be human is to strive for something more and greater, battling with self-doubt but also knowing that believing in yourself is what takes your journey to the next level.

The final story line is the ambitions of three robbers in the Check Cashing Series.  Essentially a second project,  Denzil raps from the perspective of three robbers, a narrator and introduces 3 other characters.  It’s the story of unbridled ambition, and what may happen if you feel as if you have no other options.  When looking at this story line against the second, it seems as if this is the worst case scenario, or what happens when striving isn’t enough and the angst and frustration of not reaching your definition of success pushes you to make drastic decisions.  This story also shows the reality of some of the darkest aspects of our humanity and our ambition.  It forces us to ask, what’s success, or the idea of it, worth to us?  What would we do for money?  What are the motives behind our ambition?  Like Aesop’s Fables, this story is a warning to those who are more concerned with riches than following their dreams.

Buy Semantics of Mr Porter here, or wherever you get your music. Stream and download and support this talented rapper from the Bronx.