New York underground duo Armand Hammer signing to Rhymesayers Entertainment for his or her seventh LP. Consisting of billy woods & Elucid, they shaped collectively a decade in the past already off their solely mixtape Half Measures & the debut album Race music. The pair would go on to launch an EP & 4 extra albums price of summary political hip hop, with the final one Haram absolutely produced by The Alchemist turning into probably the most critically acclaimed inside their discography. We Buy Diabetic Test Strips rapidly grew to become the best musical assertion in Fat Possum Records’ complete discography, reuniting with Uncle Al for the Haram sequel Mercy & switching labels from Fat Possum to Rhymesayers.
“Laraaji” comes out the gate hooking up an uncanny pattern saving a reference to the late Ka’s ninth & last album The Thief Next to Jesus for billy’s verse whereas “Peshawar” trades the mic with each other over a piano speaking about slaughtering opponents posthumously. “Calypso Gene” embraces a jazzier vibe instrumentally utilizing water as a metaphor for non secular cleaning simply earlier than “Glue Traps” that includes Quelle Chris topically finds the trio addressing extra financial points.
We get some heavy pianos all through “Scandinavia” speaking about life being filtered via white curtains being stranger than the northern European subregion whereas “Nil by Mouth” continues to place Alchemist’s ear for sampling on full show evaluating their flows to distant management lightning. “Dogeared” ends the first half with a drumless beat speaking about their love operating deep till “Crisis Phone” addresses the kind of individuals who don’t know what it means to bleed.
“Moonbow” continues the 2nd leg of Mercyby incorporating a chipmunk soul instrumental hoping all shine via till the top of their days whereas “No Grabba” combines components of growth bap & cloud rap speaking about their desire of smoking weed with out mixing tobacco with it. “U Know My Body” feels extra like a short billy woods solo observe occurring a whole bloodbath whereas “Longjohns” that includes Quelle Chris talks about seeing all of it.
The third & last single “California Games” that includes Earl Sweatshirt samples “Rehearse with Ornette” to proceed the summary brilliance of their earlier collaborations “Falling Out the Sky” & in fact “Tabula Rasa” whereas “Super Nintendo” wraps issues up with a lead single that mixes drumless, neo-psychedelia & chiptune utilizing that very console as a metaphor for childhood recollections fleeting away.
Despite being confirmed by each billy woods & Elucid that the inventive processes behind Haram & Mercy have been comparable, you’d be disillusioned to anticipating Armand Hammer’s debut for Rhymesayers Entertainment to sound very similar to it’s predecessor as a result of that isn’t the case by any means. Obviously much less experimental than We Buy Diabetic Test Strips was over 25 months earlier, the drumless & jazz rap influences of Haram nonetheless stay behind the revered summary hip hop duo to check out extra back-&-forth flows.
Score: 9/10