May
01

Son Raw: Aesop Rock’s Zero Dark Thirty

Son Raw is the rare rap Jedi. Def Jux: powerful in life, unstoppable in death. I have no idea what Aesop Rock is talking about in Zero Dark Thirty but I do know that he makes it sound fly, a crucial component to his rhyming that was all to often forgotten by his successors. Hardcore… Continue reading »

Apr
10

Down from a Huntable Surplus to One: The Return of Aesop Rock

Now that the Internet has decided that Danny Brown is the greatest rapper since Big Daddy Kane, maybe it can revise its opinion on Aesop Rock. If you recall, many of the same people who rode for Ian Bavitz from 2001-2004 decided to ignore him for the last ocho, largely because his name is Ian… Continue reading »

Aug
03

Video: Hail Mary Mallon – “Breakdance Beach’

The only video of the year featuring men stroking an iguana, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Jay Gatsby references. Hail Mary Mallon is still for sale and spreading typhoid to those immune to its charms. I am going to San Francisco this weekend and I will eat a hamburger at Grubstake in their honor. Download:… Continue reading »

Jun
08

Video: Hail Mary Mallon – “Meter Feeder”

Somehow I imagined the video for this would involve Rob Sonic and Aesop Rock decapitating parking meters like Cool Hand Luke, but instead they opt for the black and white and green screen. That’s obviously cost-efficient and follows protocol, but it would have been nice to have seen one parking meter explode with quarters. Regardless,… Continue reading »

May
19

All Hail Mary Mallon

Fun isn’t an adjective commonly associated with Aesop Rock. Dense, cerebral, obtuse are more common. Over the course of his decade and a half career, he’s released only a few songs digestible enough for alternate-world airplay:  “None Shall Pass,” “Big Bang,” and the closest thing he’s ever had to a hit, “Daylight.” Even on “Basic… Continue reading »

Apr
25

Hail Mary Mallon – Smock (Live from the Burgundy Camry)

Aesop, the most quietly influential rapper of the great late 90s indieground boom, remaining as relevant today as the first time he saw Daylight. In fact, I imagine he’d be even more popular had emerged in the new era, rather than the cloistered and benighted backpack era. Unless you saw his live shows where he… Continue reading »

Mar
28

Beats and Bats

Part of an ongoing series intended to edify one-time underground darlings about how to age gracefully in rap. Fuck your insincere Lil Bow Wow collaborations or euro-trash Ed Hardy dance-rap (we all see you Kweli), Aesop Rock and Blockhead continue to sustain relevance a decade after Float fractured the minds of a nation of bong-toting… Continue reading »

Nov
29

Snaggle-Toothed Rascals

The inevitable Aesop Rock and Hanni El Khatib collaboration may not have elicited Distant Relatives-type anticipation among the masses, but in cloistered quarters of Los Feliz where the weed flows like wine, it ranked among up there with the time the Jetsons met the Flintstones. The explanation is easy. Khatib bashes at his guitar with… Continue reading »

Nov
12

The Bazooka Toothed Butcher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQkbri0v5Js Aesop Rock does things the right way. He keeps it low pro and periodically pops up a few times a year to murder guest spots, while laboring intensively on his full lengths, which have been uniformly excellent (I will ride hard for Bazooka Tooth if pressed.) None Shall Pass dropped nearly three and a… Continue reading »

Jul
23

Greenhouse Gases: Blueprint & Illogic’s Electric Purgatory

The tag team of Blueprint and Illogic is the fulfillment of message board fantasies circa ’02. Eight years later, the second part of their Electric Purgatory collaboration has elicited mostly crickets around the Internet, save for the Bloggerhouse Crew. Then again, we now live in a UserShare universe, based on page views and one-sentence summaries.… Continue reading »