Rob Hicks
Milwaukee's rap scene has been in overdrive for the last couple of years, but we do our best to keep up with it. Once again we've rounded up our favorite singles, mixtapes, videos and odds and ends from the last few weeks for our periodic Milwaukee Hip-Hop Round-Up.
Rob Hicks - Paradise in Hell EP
It can't be easy being a rapper from Racine. The city has always had an active rap scene, but with so much going on in Chicago to the south and Milwaukee just 20 miles to the north, not too many people outside the city have paid attention. Rob Hicks, however, just might be the rapper who makes the rest of the Midwest start taking notice of Wisconsin's fifth largest city. His latest EP Paradise in Hell is his most realized project yet, an inventive, immaculately crafted eight tracks that spotlight Hicks' twisty rapping and moody songwriting. Hicks has an ear for unusual, modernist beats in the spirit of A$AP Mob, Top Dawg Entertainment and other internet-era crews, but at his best he's even less bound by conventions than those acts are. The tape's Mike Regal-produced standout "Siracha" has one of the most original beats I've heard come out of Southeastern Wisconsin all year, and Hicks matches it with a flow that's every bit as audacious.
Reggie Bonds - Dark Wave EP
Reggie Bonds is complicated. In some respects he has the trappings of a conscious rapper—last year he even threw a cypher celebrating Phife Dawg and A Tribe Called Quest—but lately his strongest muses have come from a much darker place. In the spirit of his nihilistic breakout single "Menace II Society (Black Timbs)," his latest EP Dark Wave indulges his edgier, more vulgar side. With its muted menace, it reminds me a bit of a Midwestern spin on Future's recent mixtape run, the work of an artist who's decided to stop fighting his uglier impulses and opted just to follow his id wherever it leads him, however bleak. As with Future's tapes, Dark Wave's misanthropic vibe won't be everybody's cup of tea, but it's fascinating hearing Bonds wrestle with his demons so openly.
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EMAAD - "(Everybody) Champions"
Every successful crew has a star, the one artist who seems to loom a little larger than everybody else in their pack. For Cream City Motion, that star has unquestionably been IshDARR, but increasingly his peers have been giving him a run for the money. EMAAD is one of the CCM members putting out better and better music by the month, and his latest single "(Everybody) Champions" is far and away his best yet. Like much of the music coming out of the CCM camp, it's got a beat so taut you could bounce a hammer off of it, but EMAAD brings a dark intensity to the track that's all his own. Those strings are something else, too.
Ace Parker - "Empty Promises & Chardonnay"
On his woozy latest single, Ace Parker demonstrates he's got a great knack for melodies (that hook is mighty catchy) and even more impressive knack for small, writerly details. It's a song about not being able to shut your mind off. "What if tomorrow never comes and all I fucking did was smoke today?" he wonders, as what could have been a leisurely wasted day spurs a minor existential crisis. "Doesn't matter, shouldn't matter when I'm in my grave," he sings.
Pizzle - May Flowers, Pt. 2
You'd be hard pressed to find a more versatile rapper in Milwaukee than Pizzle, a gifted lyricist who can do just about anything and make it look easy, be it head-nod hip-hop, mass-appeal pop, vicious trap music, authoritative drill or club bangers. On his latest set, May Flowers, Pt. 2, he does a little bit of all of the above with his signature polish. If there's a criticism of Pizzle's work, though, it's that he does a little too much of everything. He sometimes sound more like a chameleon than like a fully formed independent artist. It's always fun to hear a talented rapper stretch out, but I'd love to see him pick a lane and stick to it, to commit to a vision that's distinctly his own. That's easier said than done, of course, but Pizzle could do some truly big things if he were able to find a sound that sticks.
Lex Allen ft. Taj Raiden and Q The Sun - "Venus and Serena"
Earlier this year Milwaukee R&B Lex Allen singer released "Never Look Back," a single that laid clear his crossover potential. Lest anybody think he's gone full top 40, though, this month he threw us this magnificent curve ball: a hard-as-fuck slab of gutter house that should make the entire city of Chicago envious. Rising Milwaukee rapper Taj Raiden absolutely steals the show with a guest verse that's as fierce as it is swift.
Von Alexander and Renz Young - Of a Feather EP
For the last couple years rappers Von Alexander and Renz Young have both been making some of the most thoughtful, sophisticated hip-hop to come out of Milwaukee, so it only makes sense that the two would team up for an EP. With any luck this will become more than a one-off collaboration—their voices play off of each other beautifully on this release, the first from the upstart Milwaukee label/collective Vogel Park.
marratedr - "HO I WOKE UP INA DREAM/ALRIGHT"
People over a certain age love to rag on mumble rap, but when done right it can be magnificently powerful. And to be sure, Milwaukee rapper marratedr (even his name sounds like a mumble) does it right. "HO I WOKE UP INA DREAM" is a scribble of a song, as hauntingly minimal as a horror-movie score. There's a second song tacked to the end of it: "ALRIGHT," which adds a little bit more of a militant, drill flavor to the mix. I prefer the fogginess of "DREAM," but there's something undeniably powerful about how that song just disappears like a dropped thought. Everything about marratedr's sound is ephemeral and unsettling.
Mitch pe$Oz - "Wait A Minute"
It's not often I hear a new rapper and think "this guy reminds me of Ma$e." And while Ma$e might not be the most in-vogue touchstone these days, the comparison is in no way meant as an insult: Mitch pe$Oz has one of those voices that's so perfectly pitched he doesn't need to raise it or lower it much—he can just let it coast. "Wait A Minute" is a surprisingly emotional little track built around the kind of wistful saxophone sample you hardly ever hear in hip-hop anymore. Don't let the song's short run time kid you; pe$Oz's verses are packed dense with enough powerful images and anecdotes to fill a song three times its length.
LBM Lil' Joe - "New Slapp City"
Speaking of things you hardly ever hear anymore, LBM Lil Joe's new single rides the kind of wholesale-lifted sample that Puff Daddy made his calling card back in the heyday of Bad Boy Entertainment. Come to think of it, it's amazing Diddy never got to this beat first: The O'Jays' "For The Love of Money" has one of the most iconic grooves of its era, and LBM Lil' Joe's assured voice sounds absolutely fantastic over it.
Trellmatic - "Doubters"
If you're a Milwaukeean under a certain age it's hard to conceptualize how large the long-defunct rap collective House of M loomed over the local rap scene for a time around the late-'00s. There was nothing else quite like them at the time, and although they didn't last long, their DNA still carries through some of the more eccentric corners of the local hip-hop scene. One of the architects of their sound was the producer Trellmatic, who has continued producing music as the beat-making half of the duo AUTOMatic. That same soulful, kinetic mentality that makes that duo's records so gripping carries through his new beat tape Fruishine, an hour-plus of clipped soul and funk that sounds proudly out of time. The full tape drops on Friday, but in the meantime Trellmatic is sharing one of its tracks, "Doubters."
Sm^th - "summer/loops"
And finally, let's end with a another Milwaukee producer making era-spanning beats. This quick collection of loops and sketches from Sm^th runs the gamut from smooth '70s soul to cool jazz and bombastic, turn-of-the-century Rawkus Records bangers, and true to its title they were crafted with summer in mind. Enjoy them while you can.
