Another month has passed and I am stoked to tell everyone about these mixtapes and videos. We have quite a diverse collection of themes: the gays, the Jewish folks, the Mexican gangsters and a weirdo white kid with a serial killer vibe. It has been a pleasure once again to serve up some monthly rap pie to ya’ll. Enjoy!
Mykki Blanco – Cosmic Angel: The Illuminati Prince/ss
Fe Fi Fo Fum, here comes Mr/s Mykki Blanco, a NYC drag queen rapper that is pumping up the "queer rap" genre alongside Le1F, Zebra Katz – you know, all pining for the most fiercest and fabulous MC sash. Mykki is a gorgeous young thing. A beautiful blonde with skyscraper legs and raps to die for – or at least snigger at. On her/his new Cosmic Angel: The illuMinati prince/ss has brillant verses like: "I caught you smoking my pussy hair", or "If being fine was a crime I’d be on death row". These hilarious lyrics are juxtaposed on some minimal wave alien beats. The highlight of this tape is ‘Tonight I’m Fuckin’ The DJ’, a dazzling chorus that repeats the song title over and over. For all those who have read John Niven’s Kill Your Friends, this track will make you think of the smash hit ‘Suck My Fucking Dick!!!!!!’
Cities Aviv – Black Pleasure
Gavin Mays, aka Cities Aviv is a hazy producer/rapper from Memphis who of late ditched his characteristic 808 sound, and opted for more of a rap-y R. Stevie Moore / stoner-rap vibe. Mr Aviv unearthed a synth machine and read some lo-fi tape manipulation techniques on geek forums and created his uniquely spellbinding mixtape ‘Black Pleasure’. The name ‘Cities Aviv’ is pretty weird. It doesn’t necessarily scream super cool rapper, but it did prompt me to think of cities in Israel combined with rap names. I came up with a few: JJ-Rusalem, Melle Mel Aviv, Warren G-Aza…..
Captain Murphy – Duality
Listen to the mixtape and watch the video here.
Who is this Cappin’? I think we all knew it was Flying Lotus. These LA kids trying to pull the wool over our eyes, shoooot too obvious FlyLo! Admittedly, I was a little bit dubious at first. His Grim Reaper vocals sound just like E. Sweatshirt, but hard to tell since it was interspliced with all these fweaky religious nutjob speech samples. Now that we know who this elusive Afro’d, gold plated and bejewelled cartoon is, we can all enlighten our friends and say duhhh… I told you so. Let’s focus on how we knew this Cappin’ was FlyLo. He obviously loves Madlib, a bite too much (ahem) and that kinda ‘splains everything. This mixtape is paired with a video with all sorts of tripped out clips. I kind of felt like I was being inducted into some voodoo death cult watching this as black and white spirals hypnotised me – a flexing anal passage blinks, Indians are chanting, and Tyra goes nuts. Geez, I was sweating… Hands raised like a walking zombie… I am now a disciple of this hitherto man of mystery.
VIDEOS:
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Le1F and Boody – Soda
Le1Fs first grabbed us by the eyeballs and earholes with his first video "Wut", where this NYC minimalist rapper was prancing around in Daisy Dukes sitting on a Pokemon-masked beefcake’s lap. Excitingly, this loud and proud gay MC gives us another titillating video that could be a demo for a soft porn aspiring actor/ess. Le1F whips his purple weave back and forth whilst fountains of Mountain Dew-coloured sodapop get lapped up (with no concerns about lowered sperm count!) by the extras. With all the controversy about "bands and brands" these days, one might think Mentos or Pepsi-Cola might have have funded this video, but gawd, I am sure the bigwigs are shitting themselves right now. Their brand look-a-likes being used in bukaki themed video…yummmayyy who’s thirsty?!
Hot Sugar f/ Haleek Maul – I Don’t Wanna B Judged
The baby blue-eyed NYC producer Hot Sugar, who resembles a modern day Napoleon Dynamite, teams up with teenage Barbadian rapper Haleek Maul creating this bizarre David Lynch-esque video. With no rhyme or reason, wannabe weirdos do their best to make you tweet ‘omg wtf, u c tht vid’? A marvellous track paired with prettay, prettay good tunnel-sequenced video shots. The best part is the ripped lady bodybuilder doing squats with Hot Sugar on her shoulders. These wimpy indie boys she thinks! Since I mentioned brands and bands before, I must point out the product placement is a bit bloody gratuitous. Maul just happens to window shop where Beats By Dre and iPhones are being sold, and every shot seems to be filmed with an Apple product in view or even filmed in the bloody shop. So I says to myself… how much they pay?
Mr. Blue – It’s Chicano Rap
"What We Bumpin’ Homie… It’s Chicano Rap" rings the imaginative chorus from Mr. Blue. I found this video, 17 views deep, while on my discovery for fresh rap vids. I was feeling a bit homesick for Los Angeles I guess, missing seeing flyers for lowrider conventions on telephone poles, and watching cholos’ hydraulics bouncing with the Bar-Kays on blast. Le sigh. It’s true, you don’t know how much you miss something until it’s gone. Sadly, I’ve yet to see many cholos in England; well except at that Cypress Hill gig at Brixton Academy, inexplicably thousands of global cholos arrived to sing Hits From The Bong, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyhow, for those not familiar with Chicano rap, this is a new video with a timeless theme. Mr Blue recruits his friends Loco Sniper, Creeper, Lil Smiley, Baby Joker and the rest of the crew to rap about their bald heads and Nike Cortez’s. Ahhh a classic.
