Listening to Aquakultre’s DON'T TRIP is like stepping into a Halifax house party in full swing. Throughout 12 jam-packed songs, CBC Searchlight award-winning rapper and neo-soul songwriter Lance Sampson is joined by over 20 guests from locations spanning the globe. This roll call includes New Jersey hip-hop hero Ransom, South African R&B singer Amarafleur, Toronto based R&B and pop artist Tafari Anthony, and Halifax’s Zamani Miller, daughter of Delvina Bernard from legendary a capella group Four The Moment.

Despite its massive guest list, DON’T TRIP is a deeply personal project. The album was originally conceptualised as a five-song EP based on the first three weeks of a budding relationship with his partner Julia, when they barely left her bedroom. Eating ice cream and pizza, drinking wine, and listening to Lauryn Hill records was the start of a passionate love affair. Yet after reaching out to musicians he admired, DON’T TRIP expanded into the most ambitious project of Aquakultre’s career.

Initially, Sampson envisioned the album’s sound as a tribute to every era of R&B. “I Can Wait”, featuring Chudi Harris, Zamani Miller, and underground Halifax rapper Nixx, is his homage to the classic mid-2000s rumpshaker sound reminiscent of Next’s “Too Close.” Elsewhere, the lush retro vibes of “Magic” reckon with Sampson’s upbringing from an absentee father. Continuing the family affair, Phoenix Pagliacci and O’Sound’s voices flow through the horn-propelled boogie funk of “You Got Feets”, with lyrics about a grandmother busting out her best moves. The album wraps up like a brown paper bag in Sampson’s closing collaboration with New Jack Swing duo DJ Chidow and Vadell Gabriel, bringing those house party vibes back in full effect.