Monolith Cocktail Blog

HIP-HOP REVUE
WORDS: MATT OLIVER

Singles/EPs

Straight into it this month, and re-emerging as per the ID, Nomad rides five tracks produced by the Richardson Brothers – dusty, but crisp with it – with a moth-eaten mic and the flow of someone who’s been up all night. No fear though, ‘Preludes’ has the canniness that has long defined the slumbering SFDB imprint. Coming off the top turnbuckle, Legion of Goon luminaries Stig of the Dump and Stu the Don hold a B-boy stance until godly status prevails, ‘YKWTI’ shellacking you with North East show and prove. Less delicacy, more slow boiler with a kick below the tongue, ‘Sushi’ has Bisk, Milkavelli, Salar and Lee Scott huddling against the elements and keeping it low key.





Booda French skulks like a sensei pickpocket on the equally discreet ‘Masterpiece’: give him an inch and he’ll sneak a mile. Champions of ‘The Working Class’, The Other Guys ease back with a batch of instrumentals handing you a cold beer at the end of a day’s toil, with a shot of something stronger to go with it. With expert reminiscing from no less sages than Masta Ace and Large Professor, Son of Sam’s ‘Come a Long Way’ is a heartening, butter smooth breakaway doing big things for the imminent album. As Diamond D waits on him, you can tell culinary mic crusher Dillon has been dying to dine out on the line “I had to link up with Diggin’ In The Crates/the homie Dillon keeps the fork diggin’ in the plates”. Notes for ‘Feast’: earthy, with a twang. Drip feeding you fresh dirt, DOOM’s achingly intense ‘Negus’ with Sean Price is the dark alley you shouldn’t pass through after dark.






Albums

Selfie takers. Broken Britain contributors. Portuguese football managers (maybe). ‘You Are Not Special’ is the call of the towering Big Toast and Ill Move Sporadic’s slap-up studio skills, blocking today’s culture of aspiration with dollops of common sense. Match a highly strung yet heavyweight flow and fast bowler-beats targeting your unguarded bonce with a touch of sidespin, and this is reality brought down to earth with a major bump. A specialist subject for this year’s UK curriculum that won’t fail you.





Getting his kingpin on where power and respect can never be overstated, Da Flyy Hooligan goes for his on ‘S.C.U.M.’, brusquely piling his platinum plate high with producer Agor keeping him decked out in fine and furious funk styles. The iron braided West Londoner preaches designer danger, a wardrobe ready for war and the trigger temper and snap of a mantrap, momentarily checked by a tribute to Sean Price.

Ideas about newfound maturity have been bandied about upon the release of Tyler The Creator’s ‘Flower Boy’. If anything he’s making his character more complex, and probably even more polarising when lavish funk and soul musicianship beds down the articulate thoughts of an at-odds soul inviting in Frank Ocean, Estelle, Jaden Smith and Lil Wayne. The fact he’s still able to rip a few new ones without a second thought and turn over Dee-lite’s greatest hit, suggests the nous of his operations has gone up a few gears.

The psychedelic experience shattering the rainbow and ransacking the pot of gold at the end of it, Kutmah’s dense layering exacts ‘The Revenge of Black Belly Button!’ Though unwieldy, his instrumental curveballs are fascinating, electronic hip-hop shapeshifts and fly-by-night sketches-made-epic finding some sort of groove, and the right accompaniment when needs be in Holy Smoke, Jonwayne, N8noface and Chris P Cuts. Cornering the B-Boy/android/mad scientist market, Kutmah’s ‘TROBB’ crash-lands hip-hop and gets high off the fumes before simmering down.





Blues, soul, boom bap: Illinformed’s instrumental ‘The Age of Ignorance’ swaggers on through with lots of character, whether that be honourable old timer or the brashly pimpish, from well executed loop work. Don’t take Mic Legg’s ‘Chill Yard’ as seen (or heard); a beat tape full of finger-tapping pleasantness and loop doodles turned steady rockers, with a nice slice of subversion undercutting your comfort zone as the chill develops into an icepick. Aver’s ‘Die Berlin Dateien’ is another classy lounger pouncing on any whiff of danger, like putting your feet up with a pistol still stashed in your sock: a wind down zone for those playing with flick knives like a fidget spinner. Throwing in a lot of funk and whatever radio reception he can get on his road trip aiming to beat the setting of the sun, Don Leisure as the mysterious convoy leader ‘Shaboo’ pieces together a treasure map full of prize breaks and tantalising titbits. Bin the sat-nav and up the volume. Laidback and steaming the creases out of your day, Jermiside cuts the mic and goes resplendently horizontal as he takes ‘A Moment Between Places’.





‘Step Up to Get Your Rep Up’: a cast-iron call out from home bankers Heavy Links, El Tel, Habitat and Donnie Propa pumping out pure Lincolnshire firepower and reliably safeguarding hip-hop’s essentials with the best of British. With runaway chatter reminiscent of a certain bottle blond motormouth in his prime, Rick Fury as the don ‘Lego Scarface’ reps Newcastle at length with entertaining, can’t-sit-still facts and fuck-yous. “Broke since Donovan rocked that dreamcoat”, he’s backed by 80s patron DJ A.D.S., including a memorable meddling in the affairs of Foreigner. Ho’way the lad.

Value for money comes as standard from Tanya Morgan’s ‘YGWY$4 (You Get What You Pay For)’. Donwill and VonPea peak with a slick ease of unifying, buxom funk, pulling the (purse) strings of the best outdoor shindig you’ve ever attended, including skits that keep the album moving and spirits high. A party album also acting as the responsible adult, giving you the benefit of experience while mixing it with the in-crowd. We need a ‘Resolution’, and we’ve also long needed Mr Lif and Akrobatik to reunite as The Perceptionists. Though missing DJ Fakts One, it’s the perfect two-man blend of street and book knowledge, keeping the faith, mic swaps and the narrative style that served ‘Black Dialogue’ so well, and knowing when to attack (including some surprise trap offensives) and when to defend.





Once Danny Lover has had you over for ‘The Church Restaurant Official Soundtrack’, sucker punching you into a beanbag that continues to sag from under you, imagine if trap came loaded with an actual trapdoor; and instead of the bass booming from the boot, it was more a primal, tribal heartbeat of an unknown force or being. That’s kind of the deal with ZGTO – Shigeto and ZelooperZ – who shun the club for ‘A Piece of the Geto’. The slang stays the same, but when entwined with the inhospitable below the underground, a strange voodoo is summoned as sharp and threatening as trap’s regular 808 players. Uncommon Nasa’s ‘Written at Night’ invokes the fire in which independent rap burned in its late 90s heyday, beats and rhymes fired at awkward angles but grittily entrenched in the underground as it clocks up the light years. Guilty Simpson, Mike Ladd and King Kashmere are on hand with extra sonic screwdrivers.





Raydar Ellis is back with a ‘Bang!’, the ‘Late Pass’ provider dropping eight engaging tracks going straight up and broadening out as a source of infotainment until you’re sticking ‘em up in appreciation. Playful, introspective and tightly coiled all at once, Open Mike Eagle’s ‘Brick Body Kids Still Daydream’ has “been woke so long I might need to take a nap”, provides the hard man anthem of the year, and concludes with supreme condemnation: all while maintaining his rightful place in the line of ghetto superheroes.



Mixtapes

For those itching to get their Halloween decorations up, Onry Ozzborn has got your back for when the gates of hell swing open. ‘Black Phillip’ is only 35 minutes long, but that’s more than enough time for your speakers to pay attention as if guided by poltergeist power. The sound of looking at the sun for too long, Ireland trap tranquilizers NEOMADiC revel in summer’s last moments with ‘The NEOMADiC Tape’: boys in their own bubble personalising the snooze button experience.

Tune into Rap Noir’s weather forecast, understated negotiating from Action Bronson, and Dave East telling you to pace yourself.