review
Moon Boots and Black Gatsby's third record is their most direct yet
Hot Minute is the third record Moon Boots and Black Gatsby have made together, and it's the first one built entirely around the chorus.
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Moon Boots and Black Gatsby have made three records together now, starting with 2017's "Power" and running through 2019's "Whisper In The Wind" on Bimini Road. The extended mix of this one runs 5:14. "Hot Minute" is the record where the chorus finally comes first.
The timing works against it. This is a block-party record: a triple-digit day, a steamy night, a crowd that sings the chorus back. It landed on 14 October, a few months after that window closed. Play it now and you're hearing the right record at the wrong time of year.
It's out alone on Anjunadeep, in two versions. A 3:44 edit for the radio, and that 5:14 extended mix for everyone else, in a format the earlier two collaborations never had to test, since both sat inside a longer album built to work in sequence rather than carry a single on its own. That's the tell. A record that arrives after three years of quiet has to stand up by itself, with no run of other tracks either side of it to lean on, and "Hot Minute" is built to be sung along to on first listen rather than grown into over a few plays.
Dougherty's been on Anjunadeep since his 2017 debut First Landing, at a point when the label was already turning from the moodier, mix-first sound of its early run toward something more song-driven, and Moon Boots has been one of the clearer examples of that shift ever since. Going back to a co-writer with an R&B and soul background for his return single continues that rather than departing from it.
Black Gatsby isn't a house vocalist by trade. He's the Los Angeles singer and songwriter who co-wrote Twin Shadow's "Old Love/New Love" for the Grand Theft Auto V soundtrack and has recorded with Zed's Dead, Chris Lake and Cut Snake, R&B and bass music mostly, nowhere near the deep-house lane Dougherty usually works in. That's exactly why the previous two records clicked the way they did. Gatsby brings a soul and gospel phrasing a house session singer wouldn't, and Dougherty writes around it rather than smoothing it into the genre's usual falsetto-and-echo treatment.
"Hot Minute" leans into that harder than either of the earlier two. The chorus is the whole point of the record, not a hook that arrives after two minutes of build. That's a pop decision more than a house one, and it earns the record its confidence given three years of silence behind it.
The extended mix is the standout of the two, giving the groove room to breathe before the vocal takes over completely, the patience of the two earlier collaborations still showing through even on a stand-alone single. The 3:44 cut has none of that. It front-loads the chorus so hard there's nowhere left for the song to go once it arrives. That's a genuine split, not a formality. Play the short one in the car and the long one at 1am, and they do two different jobs for the same song.
We'd take the extended mix over the radio cut for actual use. The vocal is the record's real strength — sing-along stuff, built for a crowd to finish the line — and it's carried by a groove danceable enough that the song never has to lean on the hook alone. The extended mix is the only one of the two that trusts that combination enough to let it breathe before it has to carry the whole track by itself.
Three years and three records in, reusing this pairing reads as a decision rather than a habit. Dougherty had a whole catalogue of other collaborators to reach for coming back from a quiet stretch. He went back to Gatsby instead, the same voice that's now carried a Moon Boots record across two prior releases and a five-year span.
Find Moon Boots on Instagram and Black Gatsby on Instagram. "Hot Minute" is on Bandcamp.