Album: R.A.P. Music
Release Date: 14/5/2012
Fiery political rhyming and continuously destructive beats make Killer Mike's 6th an intense listening experience
It's inevitable that different people will have different ideas about what "real" America is. A White middle- class person will probably perceive their own brand of "real" America as leafy, sleepy suburbia, all David Lynch- ian white picket fences and smart terraced houses. Atlanta rapper Killer Mike, however, has a very different perception of what "real" America is, and right from the off on his 6th album "R.A.P. Music," he's intent on leading us all down its many dark, cold and deprived alley ways.
Mike's decision to join forces with experimental rap godfather EL- P for "R.A.P. Music" was most definitely the right one- the chemistry between them has the flavour of a unison that has been in place for years. El's relentlessly ear- drum pounding trumpet- blast assault on "Go!" or the grimey, crawling and grindingly slinky synths on "Butane (Champion's Anthem)" are the perfect backing for Mike's ever rapturous, fast- paced and unfaltering flow. It's Mike's political and social rhetoric that is most prolific here though, and most memorably so on the explosively venomous "Reagan." "Just like the Bushes, Clinton and Obama, just another talking head telling lies" he asserts before closing his lyrical battering of the former President's regime on the heart- stopping prose of "I'll leave you with these words, I'm glad Reagan's dead."
It's this kind of wake up call that, although almost never- endingly intense, is what Hip- Hop needs right now. Not only does it shove the limelight deservedly back on one of the most under- appreciated underground characters, but for Mike to write a song like "Reagan" is not only prolific for himself, but for hip- hop in general. It's easily the most "real" Hip- Hop record of the year so far.
Download: 1) Reagan, 2) Butane (Champion's Anthem), 3) "Go!"
For Fans Of: Death Grips, Ab- Soul, Danny Brown
8/10
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