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El-P, Cancer 4 Cure

2012 | Label: Fat Possum Records

05.22.12 El-P's music has always been a mix of sci-fi futurist grandiosity and old-school rap grime, like watching a chromed-out chromed-out, mile-long spaceship reenact the Licensed to Ill cover. Cancer 4 Cure has some familiar hallmarks: El still pushes analog synth distortion until it growls like a '70s stoner-metal guitar; he still sneaks classic hip-hop signifiers into an otherwise dystopian-tomorrow sound (Billy Squier and the J.B.'s always seem to survive the apocalypse), his drums still break bones, and he still spits verbiage like he's letting loose internal-rhyme-twisting panic attacks. (His words, in opener "Request Denied": "I'm a 'holy fuck, what did he just utter' marksman".) But he's rarely sounded this full-throttle start to finish — the sounds aren't just pushed to… more »

Killer Mike, R.A.P. Music (Clean Version)

2012 | Label: Williams Street Records

05.15.12 Atlanta-based rapper Killer Mike and NYC rapper/producer El-P are local legends who have at times seemed like their best years were behind them. In that sense, R.A.P. Music is a little bit like Blaqkout, the excellent 2009 collaboration between DJ Quik and Kurupt — an album made that much sweeter by the fact that so few would've predicted it.

Mike is a classicist, a real-talk rapper doing what in his view, song and dance men wouldn't dare: "This is church, front pew, amen, pulpit, what my people need and the opposite of bullshit," he boasts on the title track. Given how gifted he is, his own lack of commercial success serves as proof that the state of rap as popular music… more »

The Sugarman 3, What the World Needs Now

2012 | Label: Daptone Records / The Orchard

05.15.12 Ten years is a long time between albums. But saxophonist Neal Sugarman can be forgiven for the delay: He co-founded and helps run Daptone Records, Brooklyn's throwback-R&B powerhouse, which has been a little bit busy lately. But on What the World Needs Now, Sugarman, organist Adam Scone and drummer Rudy Albin lock in good and hard on the opening track, "Rudy's Intervention," and basically hold that groove in place for 36 minutes.

World is conspicuously constructed: Its trio pieces are bracketed at the top by four more fully arranged tracks, and at the end by two more. It's a smart way to bring in fans of larger Daptone acts like Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings and Menahan Street Band, with the… more »

Killer Mike, R.A.P. Music

2012 | Label: Williams Street Records

05.15.12 Atlanta-based rapper Killer Mike and NYC rapper/producer El-P are local legends who have at times seemed like their best years were behind them. In that sense, R.A.P. Music is a little bit like Blaqkout, the excellent 2009 collaboration between DJ Quik and Kurupt — an album made that much sweeter by the fact that so few would've predicted it.

Mike is a classicist, a real-talk rapper doing what in his view, song and dance men wouldn't dare: "This is church, front pew, amen, pulpit, what my people need and the opposite of bullshit," he boasts on the title track. Given how gifted he is, his own lack of commercial success serves as proof that the state of rap as popular music… more »