Between Milwaukee native Nick Sanborn doing big things with his North Carolina duo Sylvan Esso and Milwaukee rapper Wave Chapelle landing a record deal after moving to Memphis for school, there's been a good deal of discussion in the local music scene about whether artists need to leave Milwaukee in order to make a name for themselves. That's a debate that isn't likely to go away anytime soon, but in the meantime you can add another example to the list of artists who have gone on to bigger things since leaving the city: rapper Milo, a Chicago native and one-time Milwaukeean who has since landed in Los Angeles and fallen in with the indie-rap circle Hellfyre Club.
After a series of mixtapes, this week Milo released his proper full-length debut, a toothpaste suburb, a head trip of a record that's already making waves in rap blogs. Free-association raps aren't usually my cup of tea, but between Milo's soft, half-wry, half-heartfelt flow and his producers' reassuringly warm, looped beats, it's hard to resist the record's allure. Milo raps about any thought that's within reach, from breakfast food, David Foster Wallace to loves gone by. In a telling verse, he name checks Leonard Cohen, then concedes he's not even sure he's heard a Leonard Cohen song before and wonders if Leonard Cohen is even any good. He's editing his rhymes in real time.
You can stream the record below, via Bandcamp, and, if you're so inclined, read a wide-ranging interview with Milo at the website Passion of the Weiss, which touches on why the rapper left the Midwest behind for Los Angeles. "A day feels good out here when I do something rap related that I couldn’t have done in the Midwest," he tells the site. "Every day that goes by that I’m not doing that I feel guilty and bad. I was living with my ex-girlfriend, by my folks in Chicago, by my grandfather, and I gave all that up to come here for rap. So if I’m not rapping everyday I just feel like a fucking dirt bag."
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