Don't Trip was supposed to be a five-song EP. It still has a kind of humbleness to it. The kind that you might expect from a smaller, transitional release, but it's not modest in scope. The humility and conscious humanity of the album flows from the recognition that it stands atop the mantel of many courageous and talented souls and traditions, all of whom Lance Sampson (as Aquakultre) pays due respect to over the course of the album. From the classic house dwelling R'nB of opener "I Can Wait," to the g-funk bust and scratch of "I'm For Real," the smooth neo-soul hip-swing of "It's All Good," and the Southern seasoned shimmy of "Africvillean Funk," there are histories here that are not just acknowledged through sound and practice, but recognized and reproduced in a continuance of their essential creeds. Mostly joyful, sometimes painful, the album presents each track as another opportunity to give thanks to forebearers as one looks toward the future. Don't Trip is not just a celebration of music and musicians, although it is that as well, but a chance to honor those from whom one draws strength, and vice versa, in a fabric of interwoven relations. The album was conceived during the lockdown while Lance was beginning a then-new relationship with his current partner. The remnants of these origins can be found in songs about long, conversant lunches (literally, the aqua-disco dive "Lunch") and earnest exchanges of reassurances and promises (represented by the sincere sway of "Don't Trip," whose grooves dip like they are bending to catch during a fall). However, the project inevitably expanded as the world began to reopen into a cross-continental collaboration with friends from around the globe (there are around 20(!) guest spots on Don't Trip), one that recognizes the need for kinship where ever one finds themselves, especially when that place is under threat of disappearing. Bringing it back home to Lance's native Canada, the slinky jam "Africvillean Funk," pays tribute to Africville in Bedford Basin, Halifax, Nova Scotia, an underserved and rapidly evaporating, predominately black community, that is envisioned as defiant and unified in the face of a tidal surge of money, neglect, and racism that are aligned against them. Don't Trip, in all its modesty and enthralling levity, devotion and mirth, manages not to be too small an endeavor that it can be simply stumbled past and overlooked, not too large and ambitious a work that it overshadows the subjects of its homage, and ultimately, just the right size to find a place in any heart that has an opening for good tunes, better vibes, and a rejuvenated sense of place and community.
