Hip hop/pop hybrid Nicki Minaj’s much awaited sophomore album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded, may have many moments of musical glory, but the songs in between are likely to leave you feeling like you’ve just glimpsed into Judy Garland’s mind after a handful of Seconal. Minaj’s prestige and elevation to fame after the ascendancy of the first Pink Friday may have gone to her head just a bit. Otherwise, I doubt the majority of Roman Reloaded would be characterized by shrieks and unintelligible yelling. But then, I suppose only Roman can be blamed for that.

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With “Roman Holiday,” an opener that will make you feel like you’re in a demented version of the Audrey Hepburn movie of the same name, Minaj reprises her role as Roman’s mother, Martha Zolanski, urging, “Take your medication Roman, take a short vacation Roman. You’ll be okay.” The most horrifying clincher is when Minaj digresses into a sinister version of “Come All Ye Faithful.” Then there is, hands down, the worst track on the album, “Come On A Cone,” in which Minaj tells us all about a “dick in your face.”

Nicki Minaj, you know, levitating at the 2012 Grammy Awards.

Thankfully, the third song, “I Am Your Leader” featuring Cam’ron and Rick Ross, begins to steer the album in a more bearable direction. It may actually be Cam’ron’s best musical effort since “Hey Ma.” As Minaj chants, “I am your leader,” you quickly start to believe it’s true. She then forces you to realize, “I’m a brand bitch, I’m a brand.” At least she owns up to that fact. “Beez in the Trap” featuring 2 Chainz follows, faintly smacking of Fergie as Minaj raps, “Bitches say shit and they ain’t say nothin,” which sounds an awful lot like, “Fergalicious definition: make them boys go loco.”

“HOV Lane” opens with a futuristic beat and segues into one of Minaj as Roman’s more harder-edged raps as she asserts, “I’m in my own lane, you ain’t in my categor. You like a RAV-4, I’m like the Inventador” (yes, that’s a car name she made up). The other noticeable track with “hit appeal” is the title track featuring Lil’ Wayne, “Roman Reloaded.” With an aggravated backbeat and an addictive chorus (“Bang, my shit bang, it bang bang”), this is the most ear-catching song next to “Stupid Hoe.” Minaj even references her controversial Grammy performance, questioning,  ”Is it me or did I put these rap bitches on the map again?/You mad ’cause I’m at the Grammys with the Vatican.”

Nicki Minaj's most memorable collaboration on Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded is with Lil' Wayne.

Another remarkable collaboration comes in the form of “Champion” featuring Nas, Drake (no stranger to the Minaj fold), and Young Jeezy. The emphasis of the track is contingent upon the contention: “Came back to Queens to head up a new state.” As someone who proudly recognizes where she is from (Jamaica! Queens, that is), Minaj also comprehends her responsibility to make it a better place now that she has the means and resources to do so (“This is for the hood, this is for the kids”). Chris Brown makes a cameo on the subsequent upbeat anthem, “Right By My Side.” Ironically, Minaj delivers her most Rihanna-like tone as she sings, “I’m pourin’ my heart out.”

Rick Ross is just one of numerous guest vocalists on Roman Reloaded.

“Sex in the Lounge” featuring (yet again) Lil’ Wayne and Bobby V. is perhaps an homage to Minaj’s occasional boyfriend/promotional guru, Safaree “SB” Samuels, considering her observation,  ”He addicted to hustle, I’m addicted to fame.” The Billboard chart-topping song, “Starships,” in which Minaj will vocally resemble Katy Perry as much as she ever will, is another album highlight, if not slightly on the superficial side. “Pound the Alarm,” one of the rare instances where Minaj sings unaccompanied, is another feel-good track in the vein of “Starships.” Once again, Minaj affirms her superiority over other females in her genre: “What I gotta do to show these girls that I own them?/Some call me Nicki, some call me Roman.”

She won't stand for your bull shit.

In a nod to Devo, “Whip It” bolsters the dance rhythm of  Roman Reloaded, evocative of a party that might take place in Ibiza or India as Minaj shouts, “Hey stranger over there, I really like the way you whip it” (insert whip-cracking sound effect here). “Automatic” mimics the inflection of Rihanna’s “We Found Love,” continuing to propel the more buoyant side of Roman. “Beautiful Sinner” (coincidentally a similar title to Madonna’s “Beautiful Killer” from the recently released MDNA, on which Minaj collaborates with M.I.A. for “Give Me All Your Luvin’”) is Minaj’s love letter to Trinidad, allowing her to tout, “South Africa is where I am from/Get me my banjo, get me my drum” and “Trinidad, Trinidad/My island.”

Relishing her moment in the spotlight.

Yet another connection to her fraternization with Madonna as a dancing Marilyn Monroe in the video for “Give Me All Your Luvin’” is the track named for said blonde bombshell. In it, Minaj laments, “Sometimes I feel like Marilyn Monroe: I’m insecure, I make mistakes.” As the pace of the album continues to slow down, “Young Forever” (in keeping with the Marilyn Monroe theme) signals the third act, so to speak, of Roman Reloaded. Singing some of her more maudlin lyrics, Minaj croons, “Frozen in time, always be mine/Baby boy, you’ll be young forever.”

Performing "Give Me All Your Luvin'" at the Super Bowl with Madonna.

The somewhat obviously titled “Fire Burns” bolsters the vulnerable side of Minaj, allowing her to vent about love lost as she bemoans, “This is a sickening joke that you play with my emotions.” “Gun Shot” featuring Beenie Man is the perfect transition from “Fire Burns,” with its moderate rhythm and the smooth vocals of Beenie Man to complement Minaj’s narrative. “Stupid Hoe” changes up the stride of the slow jam trilogy with the infectious accusation, “You a stupid hoe.”

Owning her Barbie look.

Those with the bonus track edition of Roman Reloaded are also subject to the David Guetta/Nicki Minaj dance-suffused partnership, “Turn Me On,” the ultra-80s sounding “Va Va Voom,” the equal part rap, equal part pop “Masquerade,” and a twenty-one minute interview entitled “Press Conference” with Minaj’s main squeezes Charlemagne and Safaree “SB” Samuels. When asked about if she feels she gets enough love from New York, she vehemently denies being appreciated in spite of how hard she worked to rise to her current stature. She even recalls, “I was sellin’ my fuckin’ mix tape outta my muthafuckin’ BMW on Jamaica fuckin’ Avenue.” Enough said.

Maybe it has to do with being from Barbados or using Madonna as a source of inspiration, but Rihanna is definitely a pop star who falls into the category of “can’t stop, won’t stop.” On the heels of her previous two albums, Rated R (2009) and Loud (2010), Rihanna has just released the dance-tinged Talk That Talk. Already, the album has spawned a number one, “We Found Love” featuring Calvin Harris, and, based on the other songs on the siren’s sixth LP, this is only the beginning of her record-breaking success.

Fierce.

Produced largely by Dr. Luke and StarGate, much of Talk That Talk is suffused with the raw sexual energy that Rihanna has become known for. Songs like “Cockiness (Love It)” showcase the artist’s lack of inhibitions with lyrics like, “Suck my cockiness, lick my puh-suasion/Eat my words, and then swallow your pride down, down.” The lasciviousness continues on “Birthday Cake” as she croons, “Come and put your name on it/It’s not even my birthday, but you wanna lick my icing off/I know you want it in the worst way.” So yeah, Rihanna’s pretty comfortable with innuendos.

Talk That Talk album cover

But that doesn’t mean the Barbadian sex goddess isn’t fond of singing about a holding hands type of love. Tracks like “You Da One,” “Where Have You Been,” “We All Want Love,” and “Farewell” are all a bit less sexually explicit, focusing on either the euphoria of finding love or the sadness of losing it.

Deluxe edition of Talk That Talk

Another highlight on Talk That Talk is the song of the same name featuring Jay-Z. Although they’re never going to recapture the perfection of “Umbrella” together, it still works as a great track to bump in your car or on the dance floor. As far as Behind the Hype is concerned, this album is among her best, proving that quality is actually possible with quantity. Because no one in the music industry has been this prolific since Missy Elliott (where is that ho anyway?).

From the strong jaw of the bay area, San Jose rapper Roch is out of the gate this year with LP, Lightweight Bi-Polar Mania.

Right away I find appreciation to the use of live instruments that feature prominently on the emotionally charged album. With a poet’s pen, Roch’s hip hop/soul elements mix well with live sounds and old school sampling.

The 4^th track, Hard Times, reminded me of something E-40 would come up with. With lyrics about the everyday man’s hustle, the heavy kick coupled with the various bells and wind instruments makes it an easy song to groove to.

Track 5 is No More Starz, and begins with a grainy filtered guitar and piano. The lyrics kick in sorrow, and soon the drums jump in to create a groovy, yet beautiful little tune about wishing on those vanishing stars. I thought the echoing chorus mixed with the wild turntables made this one of the better songs on the record.

My favorite track was Dracula’s Widow. The 7^th track, it keeps a pretty low bpm, and has one of my favorite keyboard sections this year. The track is the most impressive song on the album instrumentally, and I feel like Roch felt the same, keeping the lyrics very simple, repeating a handful of lines through the song. Complete with a sick drummer, conga riff, a tight western guitar solo, and old school strings in the background, this impressed me the most.

If Roch keeps improving on his current form, I think he will join the ranks of groups like the Cunninglynguists, known for their different approach to rap.

Check out his Facebook for more information, and bear witness!

Until next time my friends,

~Flak

Just when you thought Kanye West and Jay-Z couldn’t get any better musically, they decided to release Watch the Throne, an entire album of their collaborative efforts together. It was obvious even before that, as individual acts they are the only source for meaningful mainstream hip hop, but when they combine their styles, the result is even more incredible.

Partners in crime

Opening with the visceral “No Church in the Wild,” the tone of the album is set as being extremely political and often lyrically provocative. Of course, what would anything Jay-Z related be without contributing vocals from Beyoncé, which appear on “Lift Off”? The first few songs on Watch the Throne, in fact, are much more dominant on Jay-Z’s part, with Kanye’s voice demure (relatively speaking) on tracks like “Ni*%as in Paris” and “Gotta Have It” (though the beat on “Gotta Have It” is distinctly Kanye).

Video still from "Otis"

Kanye’s standard form of unrelenting honesty is especially heightened on “New Day” when he talks about how he is going to raise his future son, affirming–with his typical brand of tongue in cheek–”I mean I might even make him be Republican so everybody know he love white people.” The track following “New Day,” “That’s My Bitch,” is arguably the best on the album. Jay-Z’s voice is once again prominent as he comments on the prevalence of white women as the norm for what men are supposed to consider beautiful:

“I mean Marilyn Monroe she’s quite nice, but why all the pretty icons always all white?”

"Who Gon Stop Us?"

“Murder to Excellence” is another standout track for its lyrics. Opening with a chilling high-pitched vocal harmonization, the song drives home the overall message of “Black excellence, truly yours.” “Made in America” is perhaps the most disappointing offering on Watch the Throne, both in terms of music and lyrics, smattering together the names of historical black figures with the repetition of “Sweet baby Jesus.”

The understated opulence of the Watch the Throne album cover

As the album winds down, the sound shifts slightly to a more rock-tinged beat, as on “Why I Love You” and “Illest Motherfucker Alive,” reverting back to its original modulations on “H*a*m.” Jay-Z still manages to take all of the good lyrics, including “I played chicken with a Mack truck” and the usual referral to his Bed-Stuy days with “See the shit I saw growing up.”

So happy together.

What Watch the Throne will leave you feeling is the desire for Jay-Z and Kanye West to always collaborate. I get the sense that this is just a glimmer of the musical magic they are capable of making together. Until then, look out for The Throne Tour in the fall.

Every great Beastie Boys album shares one thing in common – well, several really, but one in particular – there is no hint of the real world to be found. True, there are pop culture references abound, in fact the trio drown themselves in culture; but ultimately, all you can hear are three men having a blast, enjoying each others’ company, and rapping over beats they put together themselves simply out of love for the genre of hip-hop. Even more importantly is perhaps the B-Boys’ calling card, which is the MCs themselves. A detractor of the group or not, you cannot deny that every single LP this group has released (save To the Five Boroughs, maybe) boasts far more personality than any one album should ever be asked to bear. And we’ve gone a full seven years without a proper new one; thirteen, arguably, without a truly worthy album. Which brings us to the long awaited Hot Sauce Committee Part Two; it has not necessarily raised the bar, or shown us something entirely new, but it gives us all that Beastie Boys fix that we all so desperately needed.

Hot Sauce Committee Part Two can probably best be described as an amalgam of the near-masterpiece Check Your Head and lovely-but-somewhat-overlong Hello Nasty; all the grittiness and raw instrumentation (lo-fi production, broken microphones, etc) of the former are mixed wonderfully with the forward-thinking electronics of the latter, with attitude to spare. Initial singles Make Some Noise and Say It leave no doubt that these guys have still got it. And lyrically? Ad-Rock’s verse on Nonstop Disco Powerpack says it all – in fact, there’s no need to reference it; just listen to the damn thing. A minute into the track, Ad-Rock shows just how boring mainstream hip-hop has become. The fun, funky beat is almost enough, but hearing him spit “Non-stop going off, kingpin microphone boss, do my own thing, you can’t afford the cost of my rhyme style, take you through a turnstile, ’cause I’m live and direct, and I’m wicked and wild” really reminds you not just of how good these guys are, but how absurdly they tower over the likes of any given popular so-called MC that dominates the airwaves these days. And that’s just a minute and a half into the track! And furthermore, that’s a mere two tracks into this album.

While they may embrace the role of elder statesmen in the genre with lines like MCA’s “I burn the competition like a flamethrower, my rhymes age like wine as I get older” on the tremendous Make Some Noise, there’s no mistake that they’ve still got energy to spare. Think these middle-aged men bearing the name ‘Boys’ sound tired? Just listen to Lee Majors Come Again. The punk rock of their early days drives on their rhymes like nothing the trio have put out since Ill Communication’s Tough Guy back in 1994. Though there’s really no cause to defend the energy that Ad-Rock, Mike D, and MCA have to offer, particularly when you have Too Many Rappers as evidence – when you can make a legend like Nas struggle to keep up, you know you’ve got your shit goin’ on.

Hot Sauce Committee is essentially the album that should have come after Hello Nasty. Few Beastie fans would argue that Boroughs was anything NEAR their best, particularly since it was the first album of theirs that offered nothing new. Not to suggest that this one does, but it’s got the energy and personality that we’ve been missing since 1998. It may not be their best, but as Mike D is heard saying at the end of Too Many Rappers, I can’t help but say “…that was dope.”

Like its simplistic album title, /\/\ /\ Y /\, heretofore to be referred to as Maya (because it takes a lot of fucking effort to type out the hieroglyphic emblem), opens with the equally simplistic, fifty-seven second “The Message.” Though I usually hate it when artists use intros to start their album since it’s generally just a way to make it look like there are more tracks than there really are, it actually works as a nice transition to track 2 on the record (yes, I say record. Fuck you, digitalism), called “Steppin Up.” This finds us in the familiar electro sound MIA promoted on her debut, Arular. Following that is the second single from the album, “XXXO,” recently remixed by Jay-Z to ensure success.

MIA doesn't just make prophetic music, she wears prophetic t-shirts too

Some listeners have had mixed feelings about the deliberate and generic pop sound of “XXXO,” but doubts about MIA’s musical fearlessness are immediately assuaged by the futuristic beats of “Teqkilla,” a song that sounds like something you might hear if there were jungles in space (and who’s to say there aren’t, really?). After “Teqkilla,” “Story to Be Told” takes us to another far off place, beginning with the jets of a plane taking off and MIA’s voice ethereally echoing, “All I ever wanted was my story to be told.” It is easily one of the best cuts off the album.

Sri Lanka, bitches!

“It Takes a Muscle” changes the entire tone of the album midway through, altering the mood to the tranquil ambience of relaxing on a beach (preferably one in southern Italy). “It Iz What It Iz” continues this sound with a somewhat 80s backing track for the music. However, while musically enjoyable, it gets kind of old to just hear her repeat “It iz what it iz/This is how I feel” without realizing that there’s more to a song than just a chorus.

MIA's album cover: A tongue in cheek homage to YouTube and the 21st century

Next is another single from the album, “Born Free,” already well-known for the video being briefly removed from YouTube due to some graphically violent imagery (but really, is there anything the American public hasn’t seen already?). This is the track that truly ignited the fever for MIA’s album release, a thesis for what was to come–not just musically, but also in terms of MIA’s extremely vocal opinions about life in the twenty-first century, including the assertion that Google and Facebook are implements of the CIA (um, totally agreed).

Portrait of a Lady

“Meds and Feds” is probably the only song with a rock vibe out of all the tracks, contrasted by the succeeding song, “Tell Me Why,” making use of MIA’s actual singing talent as opposed to her knack for harsh shouting. Maya concludes with the airy and tenuous modulations of “Space,” a perfect disunion from how the album began. Because MIA is all about confusing and discombobulating the expected order.

I didn’t have very high hopes for Eminem’s new record Recovery when I heard about it. 2004’s Encore was pretty damn bad and a far cry from his heyday. 2008’s Relapse was alright, but a lot of the songs were uninspired and seemed like Em was trying much too hard. When I heard about Recovery, I shrugged with disinterest. Not Afraid gave me a little bit of hope, but wasn’t terribly impressed with the song. Despite all my reservations, I checked out the record, because, well, it’s Eminem, and he has definitely put out some badass albums in his day.

I can honestly say that Recovery completely threw me for a loop. It’s pretty much the absolute best record I think Em could release at this point in his career. This is Em’s ninth studio album, and its depth is incredible.

One of the best aspects of Recovery is how critical Em is of himself, and especially the last two mediocre albums he released. He prefaces Talkin 2 Myself by thanking everyone for being patient “while I figure this shit out” over the past few years. In the song itself, he states that he’s come to make it up to us, as Them last two albums didn’t count. Encore I was on drugs, Relapse I was flushin’ em out. The song is one of the album’s strongest cuts, with a memorable hook delivered by Kobe (no, not Bryant).

Em addresses critics with On Fire, the next track, which has a juicy beat and some vitriolic lyrics delivered by Em. The entire first verse is a perfect example of Eminem’s fierce wordplay skills, the kind of vocal delivery that in my mind is one of his greatest talents. The first time I heard this song, the chorus didn’t really grab me, and I thought it was pretty lame. Well, Em follows up that chorus with the line I just wrote a bullshit hook in between two long ass verses –  if you mistook the for a song, look/This ain’t a song its a warnin to Brooke Hogan and David Cook/That the crook just took over so book/Run as fast as you can, stop writin and kill it/ I’m lightning in a skillet you’re a fuckin flash in a pan. It’s this kind of self-deprecating honesty and creativity within the song that Em uses on Recovery so well.

Won’t Back Down, featuring Pink on chorus duties, is set to a pretty repetitive beat, but it allows Em to deliver some of his most aggressive vocals on the album. It basically sounds like he’s yelling for the entire song…and by the time his final verse comes around and the volume drops on the track while he yells Bitch you listening tryna turn me down??/ Slut I’m talking to you, turn me back up/Are you insane?? Tryna talk over me in the car/ Shut the fuck up while my shits playin I was already sold on this track, too. That’s an inventive trick to throw into a song, and it really caught me off guard.

The majority of Recovery can be called ‘highlights’, really. It’s that good. Going Through Changes is a bit of a slower tune, set to a sampled chorus of Black Sabbath’s Changes. I initially thought that was an odd choice for a sample, but it works for the song, an introspective cut with Em questioning things and wrestling with his demons about things such as balancing his career and Hayley’s upbringing.

I have to mention that I was pretty surprised at the lack of Hayley and/or Kim references on Recovery…in the past, these two topics would take up a good chunk of Eminem’s songs, but he seems to have shed all the pretenses and fake accents and typical lyrical boundaries this time around. Because of that, he really shines on Recovery.

No Love, featuring an unexpected sample of Haddaway’s club jam What is Love?, is blazing, even though Lil’ Wayne takes up the first two minutes of the song. I don’t like Weezy or his lazy annoying delivery, but the fact that he doesn’t ruin the song with his extremely long guest verse is a good thing. Em & his producers picked a random song to use as a sample, but it works well.

Space Bound almost sounds like an Everlast song, with the acoustic guitar strumming in the background and the easy beat, but it takes off during the chorus, with what sounds like a female voice singing I’m a space-bound rocket ship and your heart’s the moon/And I’m aimin’ right at you/Right at you/250, 000 miles on a clear night in June/And I’m aimin’ right at you/Right at you/Right at you. If you thought Beautiful (From Relapse) was a change in direction for Em, check out Space Bound and see what you think.

25 to Life is another female-chorus-driven song with a tender beat, with Em lamenting a tumultuous relationship. The song works like an M. Night Shyamalan movie, taking a drastic change of direction toward the end, as Em reveals that he has NOT been speaking to who you thought he was for the entirety of the song. Just listen to it, you’ll get what I’m hinting at.

Love the Way You Lie, featuring Rihanna, was already #1 on iTunes the day Recovery dropped last week, so it’ll undoubtedly be a smash hit. That’s understandable, as her vocal hook is ripe for radio play. The song as a whole is another gem on the record, demonstrating Em’s ability to balance aggressive lyrics with a poppy chorus.

Don’t think that the songs I’ve mentioned in this review are the only highlights of Recovery – in fact, they’re just the ones that came to mind as I wrote all this down. The album is arguably Em’s most solid collection of songs since the Marshall Mathers LP. The songs work well together, creating a fluidity and cohesion that you don’t really see anymore with his albums.

Eminem really raised the bar for himself with Recovery – I didn’t think this was possible, but the album is easily one of his strongest outings, and restored my faith in him, honestly.

Check this out if you like Eminem, and especially if you were as bored with Encore and Relapse as I was. This is a complete 180 and a return to form for Marshall Mathers.

Guess who’s back?

Let’s be honest, B.O.B. deserves a B.a.R.F. I don’t do them often, but I do think that this album deserved to be broken down in a way that only the BaRF can explain properly. The Adventures of Bobby Ray tell some of the stories of the newest star out of Atlanta, and truth be told, he brought something new to the table. I think this a step in the right direction for the rock and rap music collaboration movement, and after this review, you’ll know what I mean.

Beats- 7/10

This album’s beats did crack the mold, but I would exactly say broke them. Still though, for a first album I loved bumping the tracks in the car. Bet I immediately had me thinking of what the perfect club beat should sound like. It easily painted a picture of the sultry, sexy women who pour themselves into little black dresses at the club. There’s a point where a club beat gets to rough for a woman to dance smoothly too, but even with the Nintendo keyboards in the background, I loved it.

The best beat on the album, and I’m sure most will agree was track 9, Fame. Produced by the Knux, Jackpot and HamSquad; It holds the charm of blending old electric guitar, even older samples from the prime days of music, with that modern twist. With two of the three producers being newcomers (at least in the spotlight) Fame should entitle them to just that. I’ll go ahead and predict you’ll catch this track on the next Entourage soundtrack.

Showing some Coachella love!

Rhymes- 8/10

This album rocked the rhymes throughout, but I feel like the strongest contenders were the two last songs on the album. I feel like finishing strong is something that’s lacking in not just rap at times, but with music in general. I want to listen to the last song and ask for an encore, not “what the hell just happened?”

5^th Dimension takes the Del tha Funky Homosapien route and rhymes about how badass he is, whilst keeping sci fi elements the driving factor of the track. Grant Del was telling more of a story with his sci fi, Bobby used sci fi in a way that I still felt was creative and original.

Featurettes- 8/10

The Adventures of Bobby Ray was chock full of great artists: Lupe Fiasco, Hayley Williams (of Paramore fame), of course you had T.I. on there, hell; even Rivers Cuomo from Weezer jumped on a track. But the best of the bunch came at the end of the adventure, Airplanes Pt. 2.

Airplanes Pt. 2 was a pleasant surprise. I try not to read who features on an album until after I’ve listened to the whole thing, and this was one of the better guest stars I’ve heard on an album in a while. It’s been a little bit for me, but Eminem really brought it to the table and impressed me. Sure he talks about his troubled past, but it felt very welcome alongside the storytelling of B.O.B. Hayley Williams came back for the second part, to round out what I consider the best song on the album.

Glad to see the personal touch.

B.O.B. made himself a welcome member to the Grand Hustle family, and is definitely great live. I had the pleasure of checking the talented multi instrumentalist’s set at Coachella, and he knows how to get the crowd hyped. But don’t take my word for it. Give it a listen.

Until next time my friends,
~Flak

Lo-Fi Hip-Hop? That really seems the best way to describe Gonjasufi’s debut album, A Sufi and A Killer, presumably titled as such because of left field producer the Gaslight Killer’s large contribution to the beats (the rest provided by Flying Lotus and Mainframe). Gonjasufi (born Sumach Ecks) brings an impossibly broad variety of influences to the table, with tons to digest from soul and doo-wop to dubstep, world, and ambient, all prcoessed through a low, crackling psychedelia. It’s a truly unique experience, and while I’m hardly a vinyl enthusiast, it’s one of those few albums which leaves me wondering how it would sound in the format.

I'm trippin' already

With the exception of She Gone, which is by far the most immediately accessible song here, and the Mainframe produced Candylane and Holidays (the former giving a clean, pure disco vibe that barely fits in with the other tracks), A Sufi and a Killer is unified by a charmingly muddled and almost dirty sound. The production almost buries Ecks’ voice at times, as it is so understated and frail, and the roughness blends so easily into the soundscapes, but he still carries quite a presence nonetheless. His weathered vocals give an added abrasiveness to even the poppiest moments – particularly She Gone, which has an insulated early beatles-esque quality to it that gets ravaged by Ecks’ distorted wails. He demolishes another sixties trademark in the following SuzieQ, skewering Fogerty styled pop rock with a heavily fuzzed out garage sound and a rapid, frantic flow.

Kowboyz and Indians and Duet serve as wonderful send-ups of Indian pop and funk, respectively. Duet is based in a simple funk rhythm slowed down and distorted, with a synthesizer weaving its way through each measure. Kowboyz nearly drowns Ecks with a loop of Indian singing, resulting in a track so delightfully bizarre that it’s worth blaring even if just to get people to wonder what the hell you’re listening to. The Eastern influence is also apparent in the sitar and worldy percussion of Klowds, which, with its deliberately grainy production, actually sounds like something from the sixties, or in the very least a unique take on a Ravi Shankar song. The strange echo-filled ending leads into Ageing, an introspective blues and western sounding track with Ecks giving the already fantastic vocal melody a bluesy wail

Some songs seem to embrace a bit of camp, as well. Stardustin’ and Change seem almost as if they would be at home on the soundtrack to a seventies blaxploitation flick, while DedNd and the main hook from I’ve Given belongs in an old fashioned horror trailer. But while the whole of Sufi and a Killer is incredibly diverse, the deliberately lo-fi production along with Ecks’ ragged voice, with his almost equally diverse delivery, keeps things together. This is textbook trip-out music, and the hour long running time breezes by. It might feel for longer though, if you’ve dropped enough shrooms… not that that would be a bad thing, of course.

No, I don't have any change... now get the hell away from me

Rarely is an album bursting with so many ideas, yet so wonderfully cohesive. Gonjasufi and the Gaslamp Killer have created something more unique than just about anything that has surfaced from the underground hip-hop scene in the last decade, and produced a near-perfect amalgam of a staggering amount of genres, many of which seem completely unrelated. Definitely a record you should hear at least once.

After an ear catching EP and a song stealing cameo in P.O.S.’s Low Light Low Life, expectations had been set fairly high for Dessa, the latest addition to the hip-hop collective Doomtree, and her first full length album. A lot of folks in the underground hip-hop community have been waiting for her debut, and it is not only well worth the wait but it more than stands up to the accrued hype as well. Having started out as a poet, Dessa’s tremendous skill as a lyricist does not come as much of a surprise, but the sophistication in her rhymes and the stories they weave is startling all the same, particularly to be found on an underground debut album.

The code says to look down... it's badly broken though, so I'm going to look up

Dessa is an incredibly adept storyteller, which is abundantly clear right away. A lot of it is how spectacular her flow is, and how good she is with words (as is probably mentioned in every review of this album, she had a degree in philosophy by the time she was twenty), but a big part also is because A Badly Broken Code is a highly personal debut. The perspectives she takes when dealing with her family life (Children’s Work), toxic relationships (Matches to Paper Dolls), or even the difficulties with being in a genre dominated by men (The Bullpen) are incredibly clever, but very relatable as well. From wordplay like “You’ve got to strike while the irony’s hot” to cutting lines like “Something harder, look, like a moth you see, and I still get chills when you talk to me, but the years pass by now in twos and threes, these thrills ain’t as cheap as they used to be,” her writing’s got something to impress just about anybody.

The diverse beats are provided for the most part by Doomtree DJs. MK Larada, Lazerbeak, and Paper Tiger handle the bulk of the production duties, and offer a broad variety of beats. From moody alternative to brooding underground hip-hop, even big band to gentle, piano-led soft rock, there is quite a lot represented here. And even more impressive is that the able emcee augments her delivery accordingly with whatever style is backing her. Dessa has an enviable flow and impressive way with words to be sure, but on songs like Dixon’s Girl, the gorgeous The Chaconne, and the trip-hop sounding Go Home, she proves that she has quite a beautiful singing voice as well. Plus with her past as a spoken word poet, amelodic speaking parts are old hat to her as well, and sometimes she even combines all three approaches (like on Dutch, Momento Mori, or Alibi).

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She's all "what bitch, WHAT"

Definitely an exciting new hip-hop artist to watch, Dessa has shown tremendous talent on A Badly Broken Code, not just in her rhymes, but her writing and versatile delivery abilities as well. The Doomtree collective has struck pure gold with her, as the idea of Dessa becoming big in the scene is not only plausible, but frankly the way it should be! As she says in The Bullpen, “Forget the bull in the china shop, there’s a China doll in the bullpen.”