COVID took a toll on the club scene for sure, but with the pandemic finally starting to ease off and the world seemingly getting back to normal, dance culture is finally coming back to what it was at the start of 2020. This is no doubt thanks to an insurgent American underground, mind you, and the new single/video combo from Briannagh D – “Run My Check” – inarguably attests to as much. Briannagh D teams with none other than Jadakiss for this performance, and what they cook up together in the studio is nothing less than quite the spicy treat for club fans.
Don’t get me wrong; Briannagh D is definitely the star of this show, but I would be dishonest if I didn’t admit being really impressed by the form Jadakiss is in here. He cuts into the harmony with the kind of surgical precision that came to define an entire era in hip-hop songcraft some fifteen years ago, and although the arrangement pushes him to the limit, he doesn’t sweat the tension on the backside of this mix at all – he thrives on it. This is standard-setting play, and it complements the depth this singer has quite elegantly if you ask me.
Watch the video for “Run My Check”
There’s nothing lazy about this instrumental arrangement, and I would even say that the additional aggression from the percussion helps to keep the hook a lot tighter than it would have been otherwise. I can see other artists, especially in the mainstream, taking up this material and struggling to give it the kind of urgent undertow that Briannagh D has here, but she makes giving this song a signature tone look and sound all too effortless. She’s owning her persona in “Run My Check,” which is something some of her contemporaries really have a tough time accomplishing at this stage of the game.
If you’ve never listened to this singer before, I think “Run My Check” might be the perfect song to get to know who Briannagh D is, despite the fact that she made it in collaboration with one of the more recognizable voices in his genre. Historically, collabs of this nature have usually done a lot to spotlight the person of lesser fame on the mainstream side of the dial, but I don’t think that was the motivation for recording “Run My Check.” To me, this does feel like more of a love letter to the underground than a bid for radio play, which is telling of who this performer is at the end of the day.
