hip-hop/indie rap/neo-backpack-rap/art rap

Abstract, political, fun, fucked up, experimental rap. Just what you need when the news isn’t bumping your trunk hard enough and your history class isn’t depressing you enough. Top-notch beats and rhymes (and life). Warm, messy but perfectly assembled, disturbing, inviting, repulsive, not a wasted moment. Lots of little shifts and interjections in beats and vocals, without being showy. Likewise, driver’s got good vocal range, but doesn’t abuse it. Kendrick and this sort of bookended 2015 for me musically. Kendrick took his excellent but more straight-forward style, warping it with jazz and funk structures/instrumentation to refract personal/political/personal neuroses. Busdriver takes his already spacey abstract experimental style, but channels it to something slightly catchier and more accessible than I’ve heard from him in the past, so as to refract personal/political/personal neuroses. Class, race, the internet, interpersonal interactions, the system, all that good shit.

RIYL: Busdriver, Run the Jewels, Anti-Pop Consortium, Captain Murphy/Flying Lotus, Low End Theory, Def Jux, Death Grips

FCCs where noted (cleaned up about half of it for radio play)

1. dreamy, warm fuzz and bells, a little melancholy; clanky, a little clinky, big loping kick. lyrics in clusters, sometimes with space, sometimes all bunched together. immediately hooks you in. “highbrow wanna colonize the streets of compton/cuz there are no yoga spas there, there are no vegan options” 4:33
2. med/slow tempo break, acoustic guitar loop, squelchy mid-range synths come in later. double-time rap over jungle-ish percussion minus kicks, comes crashing in after a while. tension goes back to halftime on chorus. angry (heavily edited) vocal sample last :14. 3:15
3. like death grips holed up in the studio for the weekend, w/ a stack of screw tapes and a jug of lean. queasy queasy swaying bassline, heavy slow beat w/ syncopated glass percussion, vocals bounce overtop like a low-rider showing off. 3:08
4. effervescent sunny respite, def the most carefree thing on here. bouncy drum machine, rubbery/funky ascending electric bass. overlapping filtered/echoed dial tones for the main melody (very nice). a touch of rhythm guitar. breezy stream of consciousness, dips into double-time (esp on hook). 3:38
5. FCC (n---a, fuck) gauzy undulating synth pad, bouncing beat, electric motor synth bass. lines rolling into one another, with occasional darting interjections. change-up to different textures w/ same vibe at halfway, with wistful art-rap play on “fuck the police”. 5:18
6. spiraling acoustic guitar loop, bassline comes in, washed out bell textures, then slow stepping break with tambourine, half-sung figuring-it-out reflection raps, sung chorus from anderson .paak. occasional horn trills. plods, hiccups, skips (in a good way). 5:15
7. half-minute of blippy instrumental hip-hop free jazz 0:26
8. FCC (shit, n---a, fuck) kaleidoscopic. plinky digi wood blocks, swooping blips, snaking growly synth fuzz, growing shuffling busy drum machine patterns. fast flowing raps thread through the beat. 2:34
9. disorienting hazy jazz-textured electronics. glitch “oooh” vox loop like the cd’s skipping just right, snapping drum machine spins up, cymbals and snares keep it funky. nervous beeping bass. beat sways, spits, stutters, dips into jungle for a bit, mostly settles back down. pitch and tempo shifting rap bounces off the walls, frustrated then blase. beat’s like a lost daedelus gem. 3:27
10. FCC (fuck, n---a) the great del the funky homosapien drops by for an off-handed couple minutes of rick james via chapelle references etc over spacey galloping beat. funny, funky. 1:50
11. FCC, maybe even obscene? (n---a, shit, c-nt (once)) night time synth bells, loping 808ish drums, abstracted h-town but way more laid back than #3. loopy drawling verses. 3:51
12. FCC? (might say shit at start) cut up dj spooky break, junglism. live maybe-freestyle recording, crowd cheers at end. 1:15
13. swaying mellow jazzy true school indebted beat, with whispery background vocal sample on hook. beat stutters on hook, takes on a different bounce at points in the second half. searching sort of bouncy melodic rap, spoken questioning coda. NOTE: this doesn’t technically have FCC violations, but it plays with “nigga”/”nigger” in the lyrics, so fair warning (i mean, consider the title). 3:26
14. beat starts with dusky and sleepy minimalist melody layers, slowly melts to something hazier, growly bassline comes in, then boomy clanking drums. jokey swaggering shit talking (till it gets serious, till it’s jokey again). a bit of darkness on the chorus. spacey guest verse from kool AD of das racist, never can tell whether those guys are being dadaist or just pulling one over on you, but gets chuckles either way. 5:33
15. foreboding boards of canada intro dissolves to bouncing funky dusty hip-hop beat. steady walking electric bass, shuffling drums, old school phone rings. smooth funky verses flip around but stay tight. many off-handed quotables. the other really fun funky track, but more for hip-hop heads. 3:48

recommended: 9, 1, 4, 15, 3, any (and it’s hard to rank my favorite 3 or 4)