OKLAHOMA CITY — All the way back in December of 2023, rapper Original Flow brought his band The Wavvez to the Factory Obscura stage to try something risky, but potentially powerful:
The recording of a massive, full-length album of original music live in front of an audience in a one-time, one-shot, all-or-nothing attempt at capturing the fire and intensity that The Wavvez bring to the stage.
It was something largely unprecedented in the OKC scene, openly spotlighting the scene itself and the community around it by emphasizing the friends, families, and fans making up the audience alongside the uniquely Oklahoman experiences and perspectives that make up Flow’s lyricism and storytelling.
At the end of that year just a couple weeks later, I easily crowned that show the city’s best concert of 2023.
Now finally – after more than a full year and more than a little wishful thinking about quick turnarounds and rush releases – the album recorded that December evening is set to drop everywhere this Friday, January 31st as “Words for the Mindfull.”
It’s a sprawling release, spanning roughly an hour and forty-five minutes of runtime and reveling in its inclusion of extended spoken sections, audience interactions, family shout-outs, and off-the-cuff humor.
But that’s all just in addition to the music and the masterful performance of the group that I’ve repeatedly called “the most exciting band in Oklahoma.”
The Wavvez were assembled by Flow a few years back from the best-of-the-best players that OKC has to offer, and for more than an hour and a half here, they defend that title and prove exactly why they were chosen.
The band is electric from start to finish, and if there was even so much as a botched note or missed beat at any point in the night’s festivities, I didn’t hear it on the recording.
It’s tough to even call the music that Flow and The Wavvez make exclusively “rap” or “hip-hop.” It covers a pretty expansive amount of stylistic ground, from soul and R&B to hard-driving 70s funk and from shimmering balladry to epic, swelling classical courtesy of featured guest OKC string quartet, Stringsmen.
The beating heart of each and every track here is the double-barrel rhythm section of Benji Askren on fretless bass and Lil G’s acrobatic and pummeling drumming skills pulled from across the full range of gospel and jazz fusion.
Their pavement-pounding rhythms are elevated by the oceans of texture and counter-melody coming from keyboardist Andrew Wood and guitarist Daniel Acuña, who jumps effortlessly between hard-rock shredding and sustaining atmospherics.
And that night, it was all augmented even further by the soaring, evocative vocals of songstress Emani and the sax stylings of the saxophonist known simply as Bahbi, who has since become a more permanent fixture in the band.
But even as The Wavvez are undoubtedly a band unit, the star of the night is easily Flow himself, who leads the show as part-frontman, part-comedian, part-pastor, and part-guarded, emotional MC.
He’s always fancied himself a storyteller above all else, and a singularly focused, headlining event like this affords him the opportunity to tell his stories and to tell the stories behind those stories and the truths and confessions behind even those.
There’s no posturing in Original Flow, no chest-puffing or self-aggrandizing. He’s goofy and awkward and drops references to video games and comic books and even admits to being almost debilitatingly nervous a few times throughout.
But that’s exactly what makes it all feel so real, and what accentuates the confidence that he speaks of on one of the release’s signature tracks.
These long-spoken sections recall the “raps” that Curtis Mayfield would drop on his live recordings or the extended storytelling intros that set the stage on the best classic Isaac Hayes records.
A less confident, less authentic artist would’ve chopped and trimmed out all of this raw, interpersonal speaking and pared the album down to just the explosive moments of music and mind expansion. But that wouldn’t be Flow.
“I wanted people to feel like they were in the audience,” Flow told me about his decision to release the complete, unabridged concert, verbal tangents and all. “There’s so much fake in the world right now. I want the real back.”
“Real” is exactly what you get from “Words for the Mindfull.”
Mixed in with true-life mentions of family, past heartbreaks, and pandemic-era financial struggles, Flow also speaks candidly from the stage about a police shooting that killed an unarmed man right outside of his house in OKC. The recording even retains the unedited moment of silence that he requested from the audience on the night of the recording.
He’s told me in the past that his journey into hip-hop and performance actually began with poetry, and that kind of measured, considered wordplay and contemplative musing is still a major part of the Original Flow persona through social media writings and video recitations.
And that makes it all the more vulnerable and honest to hear him on stage throughout this album meandering and digressing and cracking jokes and, above all, gushing with love for his family, his friends, his band, and his city.
Flow’s made little secret over the past year-plus that he’s struggled a bit with the mixing and editing of the show (which he handles almost entirely himself,) so the decision to finally just drop the complete concert with relatively little warning now is a clear attempt to stay true to that same realness.
He could have chopped it all up and shaved it all down and streamlined the album to only its most accessible and musical components, but it’s clear now how badly that would’ve compromised the energy, the spirit, and the infectious love in the room that night.
Instead, what we’re being given is a snapshot of the relentlessly real Original Flow and of the raw power and head-spinning musicianship of The Wavvez.
And after listening to the full experience and re-living that electric December night, I can tell you without question that it’s been worth the wait.
“Words for the Mindfull” by Original Flow and The Wavvez drops on streaming services everywhere this Friday, January 31st.
Keep up with the release as well as news and updates on Original Flow’s official site at original-flow.supertape.site and by following @original_flow and @flowandthewavvez on Instagram.
You can find out about local music and performance happenings in the OKC metro weekly in this music column by Brett Fieldcamp. | Brought to you by True Sky Credit Union.
Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.