The Bishops might sound like the name of a snarky irreverent indie rock outfit, or maybe a math rock group named after the third-most fun chess piece (this is inarguable, and we’ll challenge anyone who says otherwise to a match), but in fact, this brand new Austin act is something far more rare: It’s a hip-hop supergroup made up of people who are real-life family members each with their own career outside of this new collaboration.
And an exciting, badass collaboration it is, coming in the form of synth-ed up single “Blood Ring.” As crooner Cara Bishop says, you get “Not one, not two, but three” Bishops merged together on the track for a hella fun single with equal roots in hip-hop, RNB and modern dancefloor music (especially trap and deep house on the snares and melody respectively).
Cara herself provides the hook and her verse with an RNB smoothness by way of a bit of a Rihanna Barbados structure, while Luv Bishop opens the track with his own bars done in that highly contemporary way of conscious-leaning youthful rappers like Frank Leone with references to big concepts like the third eye and not living “like we should” peppered into a solid modern flow with an edge.
Holding the whole thing together are the bouncing synth-made steel drums and arpeggios and steady trap-influenced beats of the third prong of this killer trident, producer Troy Bishop, who is a pretty prolific and future-looking producer in his own right outside of this collaboration (as well as in it) and one you should definitely get more familiar with.
This is actually what makes “Blood Ring” so damn exciting and fun to come across: it’s not only a stellar track from three members of that youth hip-hop thing that’s making the future of this genre look so bright, it’s also an introduction to three individual artists with impressively deep and deeply impressive catalogs each their own. The Bishops know this too, with the full lyrics to one version of the song’s hook (of a few) saying, “Not one, not two, but three/You can meet me and the Bishops in the ring/Not one, not two, but three/Our blood runs stronger than you could ever be.”
As a track and as an introduction to these talented kids, “Blood Ring” is immensely successful and is restrained in a way that belies the youth of both its members and this group as an existing thing, and it’s the most promising and exciting thing we’ve heard in Austin hip-hop in both this young year and the last. Check it out below, and then peep each Bishop’s personal Soundcloud below, and be prepared to fall deep into a hole of binge-listening your new favorite ATX hip-hop group, like the one we still haven’t crawled out of yet.
Big, bright things on the horizon for 2016 ATX hip-hop with music like this being made, y’all.
Cara Bishop- https://soundcloud.com/cara-bishop-1
Luv Bishop- https://soundcloud.com/luvbishop
Troy Bishop- https://soundcloud.com/troybishop