By Imran Khan Speak No Evil is Rapper-Poet Azeem’s first full-length album since his Broken Puppets project with the Ancient Astronauts in 2017 (his poetry album, 2018’s Vision-Teller, notwithstanding). His latest effort reunites him with producer Fanatik, who helmed the MC/Poet’s debut Garage Opera in 2000. Known for his conspiracy-probing and mystic verse, the Bay Area-by-way-of-Brooklyn native (now based in Singapore) has produced a body of work that has explored a vast range of styles. His most notable works, 2001’s …
Author: Imran Khan
Working the independent circuit for more than ten years now, BlackLiq has been making slow but steady strides in carving his niche of hip-hop. 2021 has proven a fortuitous year for the rapper, finally rewarding him with a signing to underground hip-hop label Strange Famous (home of alt-rapper Buck 65) and a feature on a new single by eminent hip-hop duo Atmosphere. BlackLiq’s latest album, Time is the Price, a joint project with producer Mopes, pushes his lo-fi hip-hop into …
Released at the tail-end of 2018, there is much to revisit on Ritual Mystik, Zion I’s album of deep-soul bangers. Unfairly aligned with the West Coast’s hyphy movement, Zion I, in fact, has practiced a far more poised discipline in his work. Sourcing from material like the I Ching and philosophies like Sufism and Taoism, the LA-based rapper has explored his fair share of life’s more arcane matters in his proliferating rhymes. Best-known for his work with producer AmpLive for …
On his latest effort, Seattle native Porter Ray turns up a deeper, darker sensuality of emotional violence. Emerging from the tutelage of Ishmael Butler (Digable Planets, Shabazz Palaces), Porter Ray secured his own niche in the ever-evolving folds of hip-hop. His smoky, opium-shrouded brand of hip-hop finds an unusual, though comfortable, counterpoint between softly sensual grooves and a bitter evincing of a hard-lived life. Ray’s 2017 Sub Pop debut, Watercolor (following his true debut, 2016’s Nightfall, on indie label Intratecque) …
On his latest, Exotica, Tony secures his designs with a little more intention and carves a narrative born of graphic novels and film. A self-made king of raffish-cool, Fat Tony has fashioned a career out of lacquering his quirky, off-the-cuff hip-hop with designer kitsch. Several albums in and the rapper has managed to dismantle the rigmaroles of musical convention. His currency of humor, in particular, presents a hip-hop that at once swaggers handsomely with puffed-chest bravura and twitches about with …
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