Album Review: The Bridge

With a music career on a continued upward trajectory, 25 year old musician Rei is reaping the rewards of his hard work and dedication to his craft with his third and latest album The Bridge going to number 1 on the iTunes Hip Hop charts.  

Self-belief, positivity and connection to his Maori roots is how I would sum up what Rei is all about. With the title of his new album describing him as being ‘The Bridge’ between the many worlds he walks between.

Rei is very active on social media, frequently popping up on my news feed with charming and entertaining posts. Hosting a successful album listening party and recently playing an impromptu performance at the Ihumatao reclamation protests and even appearing on the ever popular morning children’s TV show ‘What Now’.

I’ve been following Rei’s career for quite a few years. I reviewed his successful previous album A Place To Stand and I have seen him live a couple times. I’ve heard his music go from strength to strength. His songwriting is always strong but now on The Bridge with increased industry support and access to quality studios and producers the production is on lock and as equally strong. 

The Bridge took Rei over 2 years to make and is packed with potential pop hit after pop hit. The kind of music the radio eats up. I know from experience that contemporary music isn’t easy to write or produce but Rei smashes these songs out of the park. He’s going for the general urban radio listening public that is plentiful in New Zealand. Rei’s youth, effervescent personality and cute clean cut style puts him in a great position to be a Bonafide pop star. Smart moves from a clearly extremely talented and very savvy artist.

The Bridge flows effortlessly from great song to great song. All killer no filler as they say. The production is world class. Flawless even. Thanks to the mixing and mastering of Chris Chetland. With some high calibre features from a slew of artists including up-and-coming reggae artist Lion Rezz on the song Too Easy. The musical style follows the latest trends in Hip Hop, RnB and Pop music and is very accessible. The album has a light, happy, carefree vibe to it and explores the highs and lows of a relationship.

There wasn’t a song on this album that was weak or out of place and Rei’s music effortlessly crosses genres, languages and cultures, collecting millions of streams on the way. If you’re into radio friendly, positive uplifting contemporary urban music The Bridge by Rei will blow you away. World class music from a world class artist. Rei’s stellar run of music awards and number ones looks to continue. I don’t think there will be any stopping him anytime soon.