Primo Quarto

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• 

  2026 Discovery

  Greg

  • Root Genre: Hip-Hop / Rap
  • Primary Branch: Jazz Rap / Instrumental Hip-Hop / Jazz Beats
  • Secondary Influences: Soul Jazz, Lo-fi Hip-Hop, Neo-Soul, Downtempo, Contemporary Jazz
  • Textural Identity: Warm, nocturnal, dusty and organic — sample-based beats blended with live guitar, bass, trumpet/flugelhorn and soft synth textures
  • Energy Axis: Low → Medium (head-nodding grooves, restrained momentum, occasional MC-led lift)

  I would place Primo Quarto firmly under Hip-Hop rather than Jazz. Koralle & Yawuh are beatmakers first: loops, drums and groove provide the structural DNA, while jazz supplies much of the harmonic language, instrumentation and atmosphere. That distinction is especially clear because the album alternates instrumental beat pieces with actual rap performances from Anti Lilly, Physical Graffiti and Tiff The Gift. Koralle’s own Bandcamp tags it “hip-hop/rap,” “instrumental hip-hop” and “jazz beats,” while Melting Pot describes the pair as Italian “jazz beat” producers. :chatgpt-content-reference{index=“0”}

  What makes it more interesting than a straightforward lo-fi beat tape is the amount of live musicianship woven into the production. Matteo Magnaterra contributes bass, Piergiorgio Perrella and Gianluca Arcesilai guitar, and Giovanni Tamburini trumpet and flugelhorn; producer-musicians including Phlocalyst, Saib and Lorenzo Morresi also appear. Shangri-La is probably the clearest expression of the album’s hybrid character: Melting Pot itself describes it as an earthy soul-jazz piece built around guitar, bass, synth, flugelhorn and trumpet. :chatgpt-content-reference{index=“1″}

  Small review

  Primo Quarto feels like exactly the sort of record Melting Pot Music is particularly good at releasing: hip-hop whose relationship with jazz goes deeper than simply putting an old Blue Note sample over drums. Koralle and Yawuh keep the beats compact and understated, allowing live instrumentation to drift in and out until the boundary between beatmaking and small-ensemble jazz becomes pleasantly fuzzy. The record’s title refers to the first-quarter moon—half illuminated, half shadow—and that image fits: the music has a distinctly after-dark Bologna atmosphere, simultaneously warm and slightly mysterious. :chatgpt-content-reference{index=“3”}

  If Endtroducing..... represented the cinematic/sample-collage side of instrumental hip-hop and Shades of Blue the Blue Note/jazz-reconstruction side, Primo Quarto sits further toward the modern jazz-beats / organic beat-scene end of the spectrum. Given the albums you’ve been exploring recently, this is very much in the connecting territory between your jazz and hip-hop listening.