PLUGGED IN: August 2021
Your monthly dose of essential rap music listening (does NOT include the rest of the essential records of the month covered through other written content, podcast reviews and interviews, or Patreon-only content).
Uncommon Nasa - Only Child
Uncommon Nasa is an established veteran in the underground hip-hop community of New York, having made a name for himself through his uncompromising dedication to burrowing his music in the weirdest of gutters in the art form.
On his 6th studio album, after decades in the game Nasa is still his typical self on the mic. Other than a noticeable consistency in the song structures, avoiding some of his more severely clunky tendencies in songwriting that I haven’t always loved, Nasa’s delivering rhymes that are so dense you need a steak knife to consume them properly.
More than almost any MC I can think of, I gravitate to Nasa’s music because of an uncanny ability he possesses to capture the angst and paranoia of growing old. There’s an urgency in his introspections, or in his seemingly random stories. No better illustration of this dynamic is on “The Ballad of Metal Mike”, which had me fully immersed in this narrative from front-to-back.
The soundscape Messiah Musik gave Nasa brought some new elements of colour and vibrancy to Nasa’s albums that is an interesting addition to his catalog. Even at its most abstract and experimental, Nasa’s music usually gave me a dusty and ‘worked-in’ kind of sound. Messiah was able to bring Nasa into this more polished musical world, while maintaining the seedy and dystopian essence of his sound that we’ve come to love from a Nasa record.
There’s a lot of energy in these beats that I really enjoy, which I feel pushed Nasa into a similarly more energized chamber of his rapping repertoire. Only Child also is mixed absolutely perfectly, which nicely complimented the beautifully warm textures of the basslines and drums, and the interesting electronic flourishes. Finally, the album has the dynamite “Brooklyn Soup” that is an absolutely killer instrumental, which is one of Messiah’s best in his illustrious catalog.
The pairing of Uncommon Nasa and Messiah Musik proved to be a clear success on Only Child, which is especially impressive considering that this was Messiah’s first fully produced LP of his entire career. This will easily make my year-end lists.
RMPP Preferred Cut: “Brooklyn Soup”
Stream/Buy on Bandcamp
The Bug - Fire
The UK has been heavily in my rotation in recent weeks, highlighted by the fantastic genre-defying dystopian grime, dancehall, reggae-infused LP, Fire.
The Bug is an artist that I had no clue existed up until the end of August, so when I was finally put on to check his music out… I was stunned. As soon as you press play on this LP, you are brought into a dystopian world that unfortunately doesn’t sound all that far removed from today’s post-COVID world. Eerie atmospheric sounds accompany the off-putting narration that sets the stage, and then BOOM! You are thrust head-first into a hellish, but very danceable musical experience that makes this impending societal decline seem not so bad after all.
Throughout the record, The Bug enlists many guests on every single track here, with great contributions from Moor Mother, Flowdan, and Manga Saint Hilare in particular. Yet, the album remains remarkably cohesive. The guests provide a lot of character and flair to these songs that gives each track a specific personality, even if the sound consistently features a similar sound palette. The progressions in these beats showcase such a high degree of skill from The Bug, as he expertly kept the sound of this album engaging.
What I find particularly impressive about this album is the way it’s mixed. It’s surely abrasive, but not shrill. The opening synths on “Pressure” for example, are just loud, but not aggressively difficult to bare on your eardrums. Instead the instrumentals are incredibly deep, textured, and surprisingly warm.
I know Fire doesn’t fit inside the confines of traditional “rap” music, but I don’t want that to put you off from checking this out. It’ll hype you up, but also provide you with some substance lyrically to reward more low-key listens as well. And above all, the sound of this thing is just amazing!
RMPP Preferred Cut: “Pressure”
Stream/Buy on Bandcamp
Pink Navel - EPIC
Ruby Yacht’s .dev/Pink Navel is a wildly unique artist that defies any and all boxes. Throughout the past couple of years, I wasn’t fully tapped in but was keeping tabs from afar. The abstract and distinct personality in their music was something that maybe during the times when I initially heard them, I simply wasn’t ready for.
But on just the first track of EPIC, their stream of consciousness delivery immediately killed my doubts. Their passionate performances give EPIC such a feeling of creativity and spontaneity that is instantly infectious, and empowering. EPIC sounds like listening to someone be so freely and authentically themselves.
The spontaneity previously mentioned is a natural result of the production of this record, which was done live on Twitch. But don’t let that fool you into thinking EPIC is a sonically-restrained live effort. On the contrary, the sound is consistently filtered through a classically warm sampler like an SP-404 I’m assuming, skittering and warping with an inertia that can only come from a truly live performance.
I’m usually a bit biased against live albums, so the fact that I really like this album should tell you something. But I don’t want to belabor the point of it being live too much, because EPIC compositionally is undeniably strong. The instrumentals are glitchy and jazzy in the best possible ways. After a blistering beginning and middle section of the album, I appreciate that .dev got more meditative and switched things up, further adding more variety to this album.
Above all, the way .dev harnesses their frenetic energy into genuinely thought-provoking reflections on society at large, which is EPIC’s main selling point for me. On “AN INVOCATION FOR BEGINNINGS”, .dev genuinely took my breath away. It serves as a layered mission statement to just “be”, and take life head-on without fear, and with a smile.
“Let me not think of my work only as a stepping stone to something else/And if it is, let me become fascinated by the shape of the stone.”
…
”Life is not just a sequence of waiting things to happen.”
If there is a more wise piece of music than what was said above, please let me know.
RMPP Preferred Cut: “AN INVOCATION FOR BEGINNINGS”
Stream/Buy on Bandcamp
WHOBEJAZZZ & BLOODBLIXING - PLANET OUU GANGSTA EDITION
I love all things BLOODBLIXING. It’s just that simple.
So when I heard the talented rapper and producer was teaming up with an R&B singer for a project, as part of his famed GANGSTA EDITION series, I was immediately psyched. I was even more psyched when I heard this singer, WHOBEJAZZZ’s solo work, and saw the talent in her sultry vocal delivery.
However, unlike Blix collaborating with another rapper, I had questions about how this one would turn out. Would Blix completely manicure his sound to fit a more traditional R&B aesthetic? Or would he not make any adjustments, and just slap on some R&B vocals to his very loud and abrasive beats? Both of these options wouldn’t sound great in my opinion.
Well it turns out that Blix found the happy-medium within those two options. He maintained the hard-edge in his drums and gritty mixing, while expanding his sound to new places. He incorporated some classy keys, and touches of orchestral instrumentation that blended nicely with his foundational style. On the final track though, Blix switches things up more significantly, and it results in a genuinely beautiful ending to the album.
On the vocal side of things, WHOBEJAZZZ delivers a very sugary style of singing that gave this album a necessary degree of romance and intimacy that I really liked. Her voice wasn’t overpowering but instead led with the vibe her melodies created, and a subtly that naturally draws the listener in.
This combination seemed like a bit of a mismatch on face-value. Very loud beats with subtle vocals doesn’t necessarily scream success to me. But Blix and WHOBEJAZZZ absolutely made it work.
RMPP Preferred Cut: “LOVEEEEE!”
Stream/Buy on Bandcamp
Check out my interview with BLOODBLIXING here.
For more quality hip-hop content, listen to/watch The Rap Music Plug Podcast wherever you’d like: Apple Podcasts / Spotify / YouTube.
