CRAIG JACKSON
Most Milwaukee rap acts tend to fall into certain categories. There’s the club camp, of course, and the trap camp, as well as the alternative and avant-garde camps. But for as much as the local scene tends to cluster around particular sounds, there are also plenty of outliers who aren’t so easily categorized. New Wave Outlawz are one of those acts, a psychedelic hop-hop trio that pushes familiar styles to eccentric extremes.
The trio features two rappers, Deth the Chef and Spaidez—both former members of the ascendant local alternative hip-hop collective Hii Tribe—and Hot Science, a producer best known for his work in the local electronic music scene. Before he was creating funky, elastic electro jams under his current moniker, Hot Science ran the Milwaukee rap label ShutEmDown, which specialized in below-the-radar club rap, and he’s followed the local rap scene closely in the years since. When he stumbled upon some of Deth’s solo material online, he was transfixed.
“I didn’t know him at all, but I was scrolling through his Instagram feed, and he had a little video clip for one of his songs called ‘Reflections,’ and the whole visual style of the video was super cool, all tripped out with neon colors,” Hot Science recalls. “I thought, ‘Whoa, this guy is fresh,’ so I commented on the video, ‘Let’s collab,’ and he messaged me back like, ‘Let’s do this.’
“He’s a producer too, and he made all his own beats for his last album, but I said I know you make your own beats, but I’d love to work with you,” Hot Science continues. “So I sent him a whole bunch of real left-field stuff, probably 20-some beats, and he loved them all. I think that he had some specific stuff in mind. He’s really into trip-hop and creates music with more of a psychedelic feeling—very dense, with lots of words. I really dug that about his style. We were on the same page of wanting to do something that was out of left field and a little different from everything going on. He just kept choosing some of my weirder, less mainstream hip-hop stuff.”
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CRAIG JACKSON
At the same time Deth began collaborating with Hot Science, he was also working on new material with Spaidez. As the three began to work together as New Wave Outlawz, the vision for their debut album, Psychedelic Melancholia, came into focus: an upbeat but offbeat record about altered states. “The whole concept is, if you’re finding yourself in problems or situations or in a melancholic state, there’s always a way out,” Deth says. “There’s always something else out there for you if you’re open to advancement.”
Despite its experimental edge, Psychedelic Melancholia is poppy and immediate enough that you could play it at parties. “We wanted to make it relatable across the board, so anybody can sing and feel comfortable rapping around with it,” says Spaidez. And although the two rappers admit that listeners might take away more from the record if they listen to it under the influence, they say an altered state of mind isn’t a prerequisite for enjoying it.
“You know that group Lost Boys?” Deth asks. “They had this concept of legal drug dealing. Instead of dealing drugs, they were dealing music. They were pushing music to help out the culture. That’s what we’re doing.” “Exactly,” Spaidez adds. “We’re trapping out this music.”
New Wave Outlawz play an album release show Saturday, Dec. 9, at Landmark Lanes’ Moon Room at 10 p.m. as part of a bill featuring Blax, Bandhead Amg, Sparkus, Josh Jenkins, Mayyh3m, Blackk Lamb and Spacecrime.
