Album Review: Himanshu Suri's "Nehru Jackets"

Heems clearly puts a heavy emphasis on community-building in many ways. Like the RZA twenty years ago, Heems is building a small rap empire in New York City. He elicits strong performances from Lakutis, Despot, Big Baby Ghandi, all artists on his own Greedhead record label. There are also appearances by similar-minded blog A-listers Danny Brown, Mr. Muthafuckin Exquire, Action Bronson, and of course Victor Vasquez. Das Racist/Greedhead releases tend to use similar guest artists, evening out their inconsistency with an underlying artistic unity. And throughout the mixtape, there are little melodic and verbal callbacks to older songs that give the crew something like a mythology by simply hewing closely to catchy leitmotifs.

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Is "Relax" The Album Of The Decade?

When Das Racist draw on their upper-tier liberal arts education, it seems like they’re writing for educated (read: “historically white”) people, letting in white people. They’re not. If they have a primarily white audience (an assumption I don’t necessarily buy), it’s because of latent racist assumptions that education and cultural literacy are an inherently white thing.

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Not Another Odd Future Think Piece: Rap, the Internet and Female Agency

There are ways to be provocative and socially conscious that don’t require a litany of mental gymnastics to justify. It may seem like I really despise OF. I don’t. If you were to google my name or check out my tumblr, you may find I’ve written a lot about them, a lot of it positive. I think OF is captivating as hell, and I’m constantly struggling with why that is. (Cf, this essay.)

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Playing the Race Card Again. And Again. And Again.

Das Racist (rhymes with "glass vases") takes rap literalism to its highest. That fake Jamaican accent? That's racist. Ignoring people of color? That's racist. Saying they look like Puerto Rican cousins? That's racist. Like Don Imus? That's racist. A line from "Nutmeg" sums up their somewhat quixotic project: "Play the race card again. And again. And again. Drinks at Bennigan's." 

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