Killer Mike – Ric Flair
The last month or so has seen a run of pretty odd and off-kilter releases from some of hip-hop’s most iconoclastic artists. It’s also delivered a huge international hit off the back of a huge international film (more on that in a moment). Killer Mike will be taking a break from his touring duties with Run the Jewels soon when he follows in the footsteps of Lil B and delivers a lecture at MIT, but he’s dropped a belated video for his 2011 track, Ric Flair. Starting with some vintage WWF promo footage from the nature boy himself, Ric Flair, it’s odd to hear Killer Mike on a more straightforward hip-hop track. Out goes the cacophonous din of RTJ’s production, and in comes the more laidback sample-driven backing. It works, too, giving him room to show that he can do chill as well as hectic. Arguably, he’s upstaged by Flair, who is sampled throughout and mouths off about other wrestlers not liking the fact he wears custom-made boots and how he singlehandedly helped spread the gospel of wrestling.
Kool Keith – Total Orgasm mixtape
I did promise oddness, and the king of weird rap is still Kool Keith. Yes, Lil B might make incredibly oddball ad-libbed tunes, yes Young Thug has a funny voice, but there is only one rapper who is releasing a triple CD album called Total Orgasm with a free condom included. That album is out in May, but ahead of its release Keith put out a NSFW mixtape that is, well, all about kinky sex. Threesomes with grizzly bears and scatological skits dominate as Keith does what he does best: bizzaro rap that exists in his own octagon orbit. For anyone who thinks rap has run out of ideas, Total Orgasm shows one of the original innovators has still got a lot more to offer.
Wiz Khalifa – See You Again
The success of Fast & Furious at the box office (it became the quickest film ever to top $1bn global sales) has helped catapult Wiz Khalifa from rap also-ran to bonafide chart-topper. See You Again isn’t really hip-hop. It’s a pop ode to Paul Walker with warbler Sam Smith soundalike Charlie Puth adding the emotional chorus while Khalifa raps about family and sad stuff. I’m not saying this good. It isn’t. But it is a shrewd move for Khalifa, whose last album didn’t exactly take off. It’s broken streaming records and gone to No 1 worldwide, and will probably stay there until Fast & Furious’s success fades, which doesn’t seem like it’ll be happening anytime soon.
Jonwayne – Minerals & Gems
Right, back to the weirdness. I would have loved to be in the video-treatment meeting for Minerals & Gems. Someone pitching a promo where Haley Joel Osment is submerged, Thom Yorke-style, in a mine full of water, while hirsute and rotund Stones Throw MC Jonwayne raps about his prehistoric origins and rappers who eat lettuce. Jonwayne at times feels like a more laconic, less fun version of Action Bronson, but he’s just as inventive lyrically, and like the Queens rapper can pick a boom-bap backing track better than most. Hopefully he’ll continue with the oddball approach, because as a video this is one of the most strangely watchable rap promos this month (along with Tyler, the Creator’s antics), and the track is brilliantly minimal, giving his voice room to dominate.
The Alchemist and Oh No – Welcome to Los Santos
Grand Theft Auto and rap go together like teenagers and ridiculously violent video games. The link between the two has been well noted and already produced original tracks by Hudson Mohawke and Flying Lotus, who’ve contributed to soundtracks, but now the Alchemist and Oh No have created a whole original album for the PC release of GTA 5. The mini-documentary about the making of the album is inadvertently hilarious – for anyone who has seen the “making of Cleaver” extra on Sopranos DVDs, it’s in that ballpark – and also reveals the bigger scale of the project. Dancehall stars such as Vybz Kartel and Popcaan feature, as do punk rockers Wavves and TV on the Radio frontman turned actor Tunde Adebimpe. But hip-hop is the thread that runs through it, with Earl Sweatshirt, Ab-Soul, Action Bronson and Danny Brown all featuring. Two of the best exponents of boom bap show that they can do far more than dusty beats and tracks “for the heads”. Brilliant.
- This article has been amended on 23 April 2015. The original article said Ric Flair was a new track, whereas the video is new, not the track, which is from 2011.
