“Look, this thing of ours, the way it’s going, it’d be better if we could admit to each other, these are painful, stressful times.” — Silvio Manfred Dante

The Alchemist is something like the equivalent of a consigliere in the world of hip hop having worked largely behind-the-scenes for the past several decades as a super-prolific producer and beatmaker, providing dusty-groove beats for legendary rap kingpins like Mobb Deep, Nas, Ghostface Killah, Lil Wayne, Kendrick Lamar, Eminem and Freddie Gibbs—the latter of which released a full-album collab with the Alchemist in 2020 called Alfredo, an album-length meditation on being a Black Godfather, peep the album’s cover art, that’s been deemed “pretty much an instant classic”). 

For his latest project, the LA-based hip hop consigliere appears to have consulted his extensive Rolodex of close contacts and called in a few favors seeking guest emcees willing to collaborate on two EPs released under his own name (and more to come, one hopes) with the emcees ranging from established names to underground-up-and-comers but all equally skilled in performing verbal acrobatics.

The first installment of This Thing Of Ours (its title phrase the literal English translation of “La Cost Nostra”) dropped in late April with four tracks featuring the likes of Earl Sweatshirt, Navy Blue (see his previous Deli mag featured HERE), Pink Siifu, Boldy James, Sideshow, Maxo, and Tony Soprano—sorry to say James Gandolfini hasn’t been reincarnated, but his dialogue as the panic-attack-prone boss has been as sampled across a couple tracks here—resulting in a tight ten minutes of dizzying bars and euphoric, blunted beats (the inclusion of instrumentals for all four tracks stretches the running time to 20 minutes).

Released just over a week ago, This Thing Of Ours 2 (ALC Records) follows the format established by The Godfather Part II in splitting its action between two locales—except instead of New York and Sicily in this case it’s New York and the Motor City—with the opening two tracks narrated by two of New York’s finest young emcees, MAVI and MIKE (both are fans of ALL CAPS) and OK the former may have returned to his native Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this year but he’ll be back, we believe, because like Silvio Dante is known to say “Just when I thought I was out…they pull me back in.” Anyway the two emcees set a moody and mindful tone (but still with mucho energy) on the first part of the EP that musically and lyrically echoes the post-golden-age laments of latter day mafiosi and street-level scrappers alike.

On the opening track “Miracle Baby” (see the music video up top) MAVI bobs and weaves between multiple mood swings—equivalent to Michael Corleone in Godfather Part II caught up between triumph and tragedy—spitting lines full of bravado one moment (“stop taking so much seriously / I’m taking all that’s given to me”) and mournful sorrow the next (“a waiting fate there to sneer at me / I talk sometimes just knowing my phone the only one listening”) but always demonstrating total control with a masterful head-spinning flow (which is a perfect fit for the head-in-the-clouds “cloud rap” musical backing) built  on rapid-fire-machine-gun multisyllabic rhymes intercut with chopper-style-triplet-time-scat-rapping (“civilly, liberally…” etc.) all-the-while keeping it playful (“I just put my hoe through college, Lori Loughlin”) and taking no prisoners (“How we feel toward domestic terrorists? Prepared for them”). 

Track number two features MIKE on the mic (featured HERE in a Deli profile from back in June) who rides a loping, J Dilla type looped beat (RIP J Dilla, the Detroit-based godfather of soulsy lo-fi-hip-hop as you likely already know and if you don’t know, now you know) matching his flow expertly to the beat with the Alchemist laying forlorn female vocals and a distant lonely trumpet m over the top for maximum effect, and MIKE’s lyrics fully vibe with the overall vibe of course with lines that again sound like could’ve been penned by a depressed gangster.

"war on the rise, if you sure it wasn’t like us / born in the plight, we was torn from the right stuff"

"I used to take the 4 or the 5 to explore from this gauntlet / make sure we alive, it’s not a corpse I was caught in"

And speaking of J Dilla at this point the EP transitions over to Motown starting off with the posse track “Flying Spirit” featuring four artists on Danny Brown’s new Detroit-centric record label Bruiser Brigade with J.U.S., Fat Ray, and Bruiser Wolf mixing it up with Danny himself (J.U.S.: “it only take a knife to turn you to a flyin’ spirit, like Casper the Ghost / me and Brown on collards dumpin’ blunts in the ghost”) which comes across like a more demented “Scenario” (especially the closing verse by Bruiser Wolf with its breathless Busta Rhyme-ish manic intensity) and hey by the way “Bruiser Brigade” is a name taken from Danny Brown’s decade-old XXX (call it XL these days) easily one of the best hip hop albums of the last ten years in my highly non-authoritative book.

The EP finally comes to a close jury under a dozen minutes later with its two shortest tracks (each clocking at under two minutes) the first being “Wildstyle” by Zelooperz (a Bruiser Brigader not featured on the preceding posse track) who throws his voice like a demented ventriloquist so put this track on the hi-fi Halloween night to scare the crap out of trick-or-treating brats harassing you for free Pixie Sticks. 

And then finally it’s full circle back to LA (Compton, specifically) for Vince Staples’ “6 Five Heartbeats” and yeah it’s freakin’ Vince Staples so you know it’s good (even where short in duration and mellow in disposition) and I gotta at least the opening line “you had a blog, we had Berettas” (I don’t care what some fool posting on Genius says the lyric is, he clearly says “blog”)) with Vince going on to call out keyboard gangsters and other fakers (“How is every single rapper been a dopeman?”) before going on to pine for true love and true crime and don’t worry Mr. Staples I’m no consigliere (fake or otherwise) just a humble blogger writing criminally long-winded sentences. (Jason Lee)

photo by: Wyeth Collins

Over the past year-ish Kendra Morris has released one soulful-funky-R&B banger after another. And since we’re currently in the midst of a “singles round-up” phase here at DeliCorp (honestly these themes are chosen willy-nilly by our barbiturate-addicted CEO, the Colonial Clive Fowley, but we find a way to make them work regardless) it’s appropriate that we provide a round up of Ms. Morris’ recent singles output on the occasion of her recent 45-rpm release “This Life”/“Who We Are” (available on opaque red vinyl!) on the Dayton, Ohio-based Colemine Records (Dayton being the ancestral home to everyone from Bootsy Collins to Lakeside to Ohio Players and thus a fitting home to the Funk Music Hall of Fame & Exhibition Center) the A-side of which is laid-back, mid-tempo number called “This Life” which simmers at a rolling boil for its nearly-four-minute-run-time whilst utilizing a series of gambling metaphors (“I believe / if I lay myself on the table / just like an ace of spades / needs a queen to win / will you let me in?”) to describe the willy-nilly tossing of one’s heart across the Big Craps Table Of Life And Love And Everything Else. 

So yeah “This Life” is a great koo-koo kinda tune that one could easily imagine Frank Sinatra covering at his last engagement at the Sands (ain’t so far from “That’s Life” to “This Life” baby) but being a b-side kinda guy myself the real standout to my ears is “Who We Are” (both are co-written and co-arranged by Ms. Morris’ songwriting partner Jeremy Page) because it’s one of those burn-the-house-down-to-the-ground kinda songs that (unless you’re Peggy Lee) will lift you up to the heavens (peep those two-part harmonies around the two-minute mark) but then break you down again when the tune breaks down to a funeral organ accompanied by full choir that’ll have you sobbing into your Purell hand-sanitizing-wipe as Kendra repeatedly inquires “What is left to be living in?” and as the world disintegrates before our very eyes it’s a question on a lotta minds these days, baby, and most of all it’s that voice that puts the heavy emotion across and makes it appealing because Kendra’s obviously adept at belting it out to the cheap seats but with sentiments that are anything but cheap. 

But don’t get it twisted because Kendra Morris can put across sunnier material too with great conviction like slow-ride phunk of “Catch the Sun,” a single released a month ago in collaboration with “the world’s only synth and soul record label and production team” known as Eraserhood Sound with the sweetly nostalgic “When We Would Ride” as the b-side. and then nevermind the 2018 single just flat out called “Summertime” with a video shot at Coney Island.

And when you check out her repertoire it makes sense that Kendra got her earliest musical education from her parents’ Ruth Copeland and Chaka Khan records, but rest assured that what you see and hear above doesn’t cover all this lady’s capable of as made clear by her being the only artist ever to tour with/collaborate with/and be remixed by Dennis Coffey, DJ Premier, and Scarlett Johansson (please let them all collaborate one day as Kennis PreemoJo) so clearly she’s got some serious range. Oh and she’s got Wu-Tang/MF Doom connections too having contributed vocals to the Czarface Meets Metal Face and Czarface Meets Ghostface projects (plus Ms. Morris even animated and directed a music video for the former record) so just in case you think you’re cool Kendra’s ready to take you to school. (Jason Lee)