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Kill Your Darlings, the latest album from Hartford, Connecticut producer and rapper blckwndr, is a wild melange of hard-hitting beats, obscure movie samples, and heavy bars. At its best, it sounds like a Madlib album, and blckwndr can be as taciturn as MIKE or as absurd and goofy as Danny Brown. Standout “Lord and the Lightning” takes its name from the lyrics of the song it samples: the 5th Dimension’s cover of “Stoned Soul Picnic.” Over a stuttered and slowed-down section of the song, blckwndr goes off: “Life is short/This shit pretend to be/Take a moment rest in peace to all my enemies.” After dispatching his challengers and proclaiming himself the best ever to do it, he hands the mic to Lord Juco, a Toronto rapper with links to the Griselda crew. Juco brings an earnest grit to his section, pummeling over the production with soulful asides and straight truth (“Focus on others was my decline”). Even when he’s not rapping, you can hear blckwndr whooping along in the back. He knows what he’s got here is good.
With artists releasing songs at a fast and furious pace, it’s difficult for the average hip-hop head to keep track of it all—no matter how tapped in they are. That’s why we created The Ones, a daily post to highlight the song you need to hear.
Check out previous Ones, and listen to new rap from blckwndr and Lord Juco and more on our Spotify playlist.
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