Mike Dupar sips out of a special edition Dodgers cup.
As far as introductions go, Diamond Chalice’s feels like a calculated declaration of war, as the rapper and producer duo who met at Columbia College in Chicago, deliver threats of defecation and homicide against wack rappers with a comical, yet disturbing deference. Birthed out of a disdain for rappers that, to be more specific, sweat the “cooch” and sound like “Yung Joc with a cum sock”, Diamond Chalice’s debut single is a humorously sadistic anthem and the perfect introduction to the Harlem (by way of the Midwest) duo’s strange and smart brand of rap.
On “Pleather Suit”, the Creature (rapper) and Taavi (producer) present themselves as the manifestation of that dreaded and unknown thing that awaits shitty rap crews beyond the cover of fog. Hilariously, the duo’s true disdain is reserved for those that look like the human personification of pleather suits. While irrepressibly funny, “Pleather Suit” favors the underlying threat of its production. Blending new-wave synths, heavy metal riffs, and the percussive sounds of a foundry, Taavi melds disparate influences into a lead-lined backdrop that imbues the Creature’s perverted incantations and guttural ad-libs with an unnerving menace.
Brandishing a cognac bottle and listening to Willie Hutch, the Creature arrives like a rap Mephistopheles—had he been exclusively concerned with hexing rappers with venereal diseases. Describing himself only by way of the onomatopoeia “ugh” and his affinity for brown liquors, nicotine, and narcotics, the Creature rhymes like a ginsu-tongued demon offering the keynote speech at the Player Haters Ball. As he hurls insults and compares other rappers’ styles to gonorrhea, one can’t help but hallucinate the cackles of the Creature, laughing at his own jokes in the background.
In both tone and style, “Pleather Suit” inhabits that strange feeling right in-between fear and laughter. Like a sinister and less cartoonish heir to D12’s “Shit On You,” “Pleather Suit” ridicules and embraces threat-rap clichés with a clever self-awareness that is hard to come by. Only time will tell whether or not the duo’s threats are truly to be heeded, but for a first single, “Pleather Suit” is perversely satisfying and perfectly suited for sustaining those Halloween vibes.
