2017 · Album
Highly Rare
Recorded 2015–2016 · International Anthem · Produced by Makaya McCraven
Scraps, Loops, and Something Real
McCraven turns leftover session footage into something that actually holds your attention start to finish.
If you already know Makaya McCraven from In the Moment (2015), his sprawling live-to-studio debut, then Highly Rare (2017) will feel like a natural next step — smaller in scale but tighter in execution. The album is built from leftover and bonus material, the kind of thing most artists would leave on a hard drive. McCraven and his collaborators cut it up, layered it, and stitched it into something that flows more like a mixtape than a traditional jazz record. That approach is the whole point. He is not trying to make a conventional album here.
What you actually hear is a lot of space — brushed drums sitting low in the mix, guitar and keys drifting in and out, fragments of melody that feel half-remembered rather than composed. Tracks like "The Knew Untitled" have this loose, unhurried quality where nothing is overstated. It is genuinely chill without being background music, which is harder to pull off than it sounds. The African American jazz tradition is clearly in the DNA here, but McCraven is filtering it through a production sensibility that owes as much to hip-hop as it does to post-bop.
Honestly, Highly Rare is not the place to start with McCraven if you want the full picture — In the Moment or Universal Beings make a stronger first impression. But as a side document, a glimpse into how he thinks about editing and texture, it is genuinely interesting. It rewards headphone listening more than it rewards trying to put it on at a dinner party. If you are already a fan, you will find plenty here. If you are not yet, go back to his earlier records first.
