R.A.P. Music

The unlikely pairing of Southern M.C. Killer Mike with celebrated New York-based hip-hop producer El-P (of Company Flow) has yielded some brilliant R.A.P. “Rebellious African People’s” Music here. El-P has laced each one of the 12 tracks with his signature cacophonous sound, dripping with layers of synthesized distortion and driven by bass-heavy drums. Killer Mike keeps the pace with equally heavy lyrics covering topics from criminal activities to religion and politics. The first single to drop is a joint called “Untitled.” El-P’s beat begins with some throbbing reverb and pulsating bass drum complemented by an up-tempo bongo drum loop while Killer Mike raps “It takes a woman’s womb to make a Christ or Dalai Lama/ The world might take that child, turn that child to a monster/ The Lord take that monster and fashion him a saint/ I present you Malcolm X for those that saying that he can’t.” Killer Mike describes the song “Don’t Die”—a violent scene of frustrated reaction to racial profiling—as a response to the “suppression and oppression of ideas in America,” while the much lighter “Jojo’s Chillin’” demonstrates KM’s irreverence in storytelling and El-P’s reverence for the old school hip-hop sound.