Twenty years beyond the triumph from the G-U-R-U, the wild one with the monotone style, comes the monotone Samurai. Chester Watson, the Tin Wooki, the 16-year old with St. Louis blood, a Georgia address, metal-faced ancestry, and worries piqued by witches curses, too much weed, and/or the struggles inherent in being a teen prodigy. Stress aside: all three make for marvelous conflict.
Chester took the SAT’s this morning and then casually dropped the heaviest arsenal by a 16-year old since Sweatshirt. If he gets less than a 750 on the verbal section, I’ll be shocked. This is the first record since Paul Barman to use the word, “pulchritudinous.” Chester made many of the beats. He raps most of the raps. The structure comes in five parts: Act I -the Prophecy (tracks 1-5), Act II -Land of the Monsters (6-10), Act III -the Witch and the Forest (11-17), Act IV -the Villain’s Creed (18-23), Act V -the War. It’s alternately constructed for Grimm Brothers fantasy and blunt-cruises to get your lungs black. A dense, doom-laden, and psychedelic journey. Tin Wooki isn’t an album, it’s an arrival.
