PLUGGED IN: June 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).
August Fanon & Defcee - We Dressed the City with Our Names
If Defcee was a stock, he’d be Amazon (I’m assuming that is a super guaranteed to succeed stock). The Chicago lyricist, known for his supreme penmanship has been making major waves in 2021. Starting the year with a deluxe edition of his Nick Arcade collaboration, Ceenick, Defcee set a high bar for his year. With HUGE projects still to come by year’s end., even more, is to come from the now newly minted Backwoodz Studioz signee.
But for now, the latest work we have from Defcee is an intriguing collaboration with the great August Fanon. Following a concept based on the graffiti-focused 1983 movie, Style Wars, Defcee draws parallels between bombing and writing in his context, that of raps, and it goes over very well. Throughout this project, you can feel the pride that Defcee has in his rhymes, as he waxes poetic about what the art form means to him, including some impactful personal reflections as well.
“Alive” is a beautiful ode to writing, and the power of hip-hop to heal and immortalize one’s spirit in rhyme through the use of graffiti tagging as a lyrical motif once again. On this track, and throughout this whole album, Defcee is remarkably eloquent in his rhymes. He paints detailed pictures that are filled with emotion and insight, delivered with a precise flow and great wordplay. Defcee is genuinely one of the best lyricists in the game right now.
August Fanon delivered the most pretty and manicured set of beats I have heard from him on a single project. The vibe he creates with the production is beautifully melancholy, and ethereal even at times. The instrumentals complimented Defcee’s lyricism perfectly because the production set the tone, but gave the bars the necessary room to be fully absorbed by the listener.
We Dressed the City with Our Names is an immersive and highly rewarding lyrical experience, with a beautifully layered musical accompaniment.
RMPP Preferred Cut: “Alive”
Stream/Buy on Bandcamp
PremRock - Lord Bearing Crow’s Feet
Another Backwoodz Studioz artist that you need to pay attention to is PremRock. Appearing on my radar after his amazing collaboration with Curly Castro as ShrapKnel last year, New York’s PremRock has dropped his Backwoodz Studioz debut titled Lord Bearing Crow’s Feet.
Similar to Defcee, PremRock is another lyrical marksman that is exceptionally precise in his lyricism. Throughout this album, PremRock shows that he thrives in the grey area. He has an uncanny ability to expand on nitty-gritty details that allow him to bring a ton of nuance to the table, creating songs that touch on complex emotions and dense narratives. This all leads to Lord Bearing Crow’s Feet heavily rewarding repeated listens.
This sense of precision on this LP extends to the production as well. These beats, created by talented producers in Messiah Musik, Small Professor, BrainOrchestra, and PremRock himself, are quite subtle and give Prem’s lyrics a lot of room to breathe. It definitely shows Prem in a different light than his work with ShrapKnel, where he is not fighting for attention with ELUCID’s noisy soundscapes on ShrapKnel. Mixed and mastered by the god Willie Green, the sound features a degree of warmth that gives this album a real sense of intimacy, which pairs nicely with Prem’s calm and measured style.
Finally, the album is sneakily catchy too. A trait that I only realized on multiple listens. There are some very nice drum grooves all over this album, and tight hooks that are genuinely catchy. No hook better than on “The Shortest Story Ever”, with PremRock and Henry Canyons tag-teaming the hook, with Canyons sliding SO nicely on the back half of the refrain.
You better jump on the Backwoodz bandwagon now before it fills up!
RMPP Preferred Cut: “Soft Machinery”
Stream/Buy on Bandcamp
Sadhugold. & Spook - N.S.F.W (NOT SAFE FOR WHITES)
Not Safe for Whites = N.S.F.W. in the context of this album title.
That’s quite the disclaimer to see prior to even pressing play on an album. Although I am a “non-white”, I am not black either. Therefore, my perspective going into this album was that I am not the primary audience. Not like this is an incredibly new perspective for me as an Indian man listening to the hip-hop genre, but this title had me prepared for something particularly confrontational and challenging that may make me feel uncomfortable as a non-black person.
What I came to realize, upon many listens of this album (one of my most played albums of the year!), was that my preconceived notions were mostly accurate… except they were notably incomplete, since Sadhu. and Spook explored these topics so well… So well in fact, that no matter your background, I feel it is easy to understand and connect with the themes of dismantling racism with vicious intent.
Spook is a relatively unknown rapper to me up until this point, so I wasn’t exactly prepared for how relentless Spook was in staying focused on the album’s main messages. Subject matter related to key issues afflicting black communities (e.g., racism, gentrification, police brutality), do not form a sort of loose motif on this album. On the contrary, N.S.F.W. is laser-focused on this topic in a way that is inescapable. All that being said, this album never felt “preachy” in the slightest.
Although the content was confrontational, Spook was dropping nuanced jewels that made me feel genuinely enlightened and entertained. That’s the kicker with this album. Spook manages to walk this tightrope between dark humour and urgent heavy content remarkably well.
The strength of the dark humour can be found in the closing lines on “Dick Rowland Enterprises”:
“Listen boy, we don’t serve n******/Cool, I don’t eat ’em”
After hearing a line like that, one part of me is saying to myself “damn what a clever bar”, but the other part of me is really absorbing the disgusting realities that black folks had to deal with throughout history. The lyrical intricacies are impressive on this album, and so is the delivery. Spook annihilates these Sadhu beats with such a level of passion and skill, which was simply amazing.
Finally, a key reason to this album feeling much more entertaining than you might expect, stems from the tremendously colourful production from Sadhugold. I am quite familiar with the Philly producer’s impressive output over the years for the likes of Mach-Hommy, Estee Nack, Tha God Fahim and other underground heavyweights. But what Sadhu did on N.S.F.W. is his best work in my humble opinion.
Sadhu weaves together many cartoonish samples, gritty and that moves N.S.F.W. at a blisteringly fast pace with a fantastic ability to set a scene. The instrumentals also dabble in sound collage tendencies to strong effect, where vocal samples and intricate production drive large portions of songs. On “Immolation Scene”’s second half, a young woman recounts a harrowing memory of her time as a black child attending a predominantly white school during what sounds like the Jim Crow era of America. At one point, “drag her over to this tree” is said… which simply speaks for itself. The back half of “PTSD Youngboy” showcases a very enlightening conversation between two black folks discussing how to best move forward as a community, and the nuance and the power behind the inclusion of this skit is not lost on me.
As a whole, Sadhu delivers an incredible tapestry of sound that will keep you hyper-engaged, if somehow Spook doesn’t achieve that all on his own. N.S.F.W. is an essential release that is challenging in the best possible way.
RMPP Preferred Cut: “Dick Rowland Enterprises”
Stream/Buy on Bandcamp
YL - IT NEVER ENTERED MY MIND
After being on my radar for the past year, New York’s YL fully grabbed my full attention on his latest album, IT NEVER ENTERED MY MIND.
Characterized by his super slick rhymes and rapid-fire flow, YL delivers an energetic performance on this project that makes this 30 minute effort breeze by with ease. YL’s dizzying flow patterns are complimented by a sharp lyrical ability that allows for him to make a point, or paint a picture in very few words. Therefore, he is able to really make use of the attention you give him as a listener, and doesn’t overstay his welcome in the slightest.
YL’s mic presence is simply outstanding, allowing him to navigate through these glitchy left-field instrumentals with ease. A lesser rapper, someone who had a harder time finding the pocket in a beat, would’ve been overwhelmed by this production. YL enlisted some of the best names in the underground hip-hop production scene, particularly Roper Williams (produced for Your Old Droog, Fatboi Sharif, Starker - interview with him and Fatboi Sharif here), Argov (frequent producer for Your Old Droog), and NOFACE… who produced the bulk of this album’s songs.
No Face and YL make a perfect pairing. NOFACE’s beats are busy and eccentric, but still give YL just enough of a groove to fit in. My favourite beat on this album, “ON ICE”, displays how well YL’s flows sound atop this wildly inventive and noisy NOFACE production.
Just like his close collaborators in Starker and Fatboi Sharif, YL is a key voice you need to follow out of the state of New York.
RMPP Preferred Cut: “MAN ON FIRE”
Stream/Buy on Bandcamp
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