ALL CAPS Weekly 003: Debuts, sophomores and free DLCs
Underground drops come out on top
Every morning when I leave my humble Brunswick abode, I’m greeted by what I like to call the ‘12 Apostles’ — a choppy graffiti installation of 12 sketchy faces which watch over the daily flood of pedestrians and car-owners outside my studio. While I never actually counted the apostles, I went to the effort of naming them, so when I awoke today to discover them being painted over by a group of beer-guzzling graffiti artists, I could only react with immeasurable disappointment and a sense that my day had been ruined.
But look, I’ll concede that the wall had become very grubby. More-so a collection of scribbles and territorial markings than a gathering of street art. The end product of the seemingly commissioned artists pictured above actually turned out pretty dope — and the artists themselves turned out dope too. We chatted TDE, Kendrick, Ab Soul and the general ok-ness of being a social weirdo. I handed them some podcast stickers, and they handed me a smile + a new morning art installation to greet my routine exits from the abode. All things in equal measure hey.
The News
Scaring the Hoes DLC
If you’ve ever listened to ALL CAPS, you’ve listened to us rambling about JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown’s collaborative 2023 opus, Scaring the Hoes.
Produced on just one beat-machine and recorded in a series of documented rapper-veteran sessions in someone’s bedroom, Scaring the Hoes Volume 1. was released to mass-hysteria — hip hop heads largely adored it, while the hoes ™️ shrieked in abject neophobia.
To the joy of the former, Peggy and Danny dropped a self-proclaimed “DLC” or downloadable content pack for the project. In reality, it’s a new four track-ep sporting some very hoe-ish production and extra hoe-ish bars — resulting in more of the year’s best music in hip hop.
Notably, the new tracks — particularly Chad’s favourite “Tell Me Where To Go” sees smoother production and calmer bars from Danny Brown as he raps more introspectively than anything offered on Vol 1.
Standouts for Lenny are ‘HERMANOS’ for its Spanish sonata samples and driving, bassy production, and ‘NO! NO! NO! NO!’ etc for a beautiful spoken word piece by Danny Brown at the tail-end.
Chad had interesting thoughts too: in that he prefers the DLC for its flow and cohesiveness as opposed to the inspiring album’s manic vibe-switches. If you ask Lenny, they’re sibling projects in both aesthetic and ambition, with the DLC pack feeling more like a victory lap than anything.
xmunashe gets due praises
Two months ago, Lenny was in Sydney for some work-related stuff (*cough, massive nomination for journalism stuff, cough*), and happened to catch an impromptu show of Sydney-based artist xmunashe — colloquially known as Munashe.
I’d just finished watching one of the most challenging, questionable films of my life at the Golden Age cinema in Surry Hills when — on my way out of the building — I overheard a group of people talking about hip hop.
Full of traveler’s confidence, I introduced myself and the pod, unknowing to the fact I was meeting burgeoning hip hop/rnb/soul artist Munashe, and was about to get dragged into a side-room for one of the best live performances I’ve seen (a stark contrast to the dogs**t film from moments earlier).
So look, long-story-short, Munashe and crew jam out with sick improvisational acts that can only be described as elevated and spiritual, but that’s not what we’re hear to talk about!
Munashe did the rounds in Melbourne recently, and off the back of that, he’s landed his own dedicated writeup in Vice Magazine.
It’s a good writeup and interview — going as far as introducing bandmates and detailing the past four years of Munashe’s life — and by all intents and purposes, it looks like it could be Munashe’s glow-up moment.
At ALL CAPS, we love to see it — local artists making music for the sake of music, and getting the due accolades from big publications instead of the usual deluge of Migos, Drake, Ice Spice and rage music.
All that’s left for Munashe to do next is actually drop the debut! I don’t know if album releases and accolades are what he’s after at the moment — but reading this Vice article, my second thought was “hopefully he goes somewhere with this”.
Australia-based artists do this funny thing where they make some of the best underground sh*t I’ve ever heard, then disappear into obscurity. Every time it happened, I’d be shocked, until eventually I came to expect it.
So Munashe, if this somehow gets to you, congratulations and strike while the fire’s hot 🔥🔥
Tracks of the Week
Looking at our track roundups lately — I do wonder if mainstream hip hop is just pop at this point. Unless it’s UK, Kendrick, Cole or a still-active 90s act, all the heads and active-listeners turn to the underground for the real stuff — as we’ve done this week.
Kicking off is HERMANOS off the prior mentioned Scaring the Hoes DLC, sporting some of the wildest Peggy production yet.
Next up, we’ve got a dreamy demo from London-based Barney Artist with ‘CLUTCH - demo’ ft Jay Prince — this track reminds me of the dream I had last night about buying N64 bootleg games at an alternate universe Safeway (not Woolworths) — submersed keys, punchy drums, angelic choruses, and of course, smooth London flows.
Hit-Boy turns up with his actual dad Big Hit on ‘Watch Out For The Riders’ ft Jay Worthy. Coming out of 9 years in prison, Hit-Boy’s old man fits right into contemporary hip hop and his son’s production, and it’s a beautiful thing. I’m pretty sure the track features a few chops from D.J.Roger’s 1973 track of the same name, see if you can spot the sample:
Leave a comment if you got it 😉
Afroswing pioneer J Hus comes through with the euphanisms on dancehall bop ‘Alien Girl’. The beat swings and the lyrics, well, they can speak for themselves:
Come jump on me, take you somewhere no one can see
We go to Uranus, wood in your pum-pum and thumb in your ***
Different gyal, she got alien status (Ah)
Put on a sex tune while I sex you in Neptune
This comes around only once in a blue moon
- J Hus on ‘Alien Girl’
‘smiles :)’ from LA-based rap trio grouptherapy is a brainy, trippy collection of bars about breakups, trust and the inner-world lurking behind innocuous smiles :). Their album “i was mature for my age, but I was still a child’ has been an odyssey to listen too - strong recommend.
Lastly, Mellow Music Group has shared a few cuts from upcoming collaborative label project ‘Omakase’, which gets its name from a Japanese saying reserved for trusting a sushi chef with curating you an experience. ‘The Price’ by YUNGMORPHEUS brings a strutting jazz meditation sporting bars on restaurant menus and moving through life.
Season 2 Debut - The sophomore slump
Our aptly titled season debut is about the sophomore slump — a phenomena of second albums struggling to live up to an artist’s debut.
We draw on hip hop’s rich history to highlight our sophomore favourites, while also demonstrating the insurmountable pressure some artists face when coming off a killer debut.
Like, can you imagine trying to follow up Illmatic or Good Kid? Good luck!
We also share our thoughts on Dear Mama, a new FX documentary about Tupac, the Shakur’s and the Black Panthers.
And of course, all of this is over a new backing instrumental produced with the help of Brunswick local Bill Bingley.
Until next week Cappers. Much love.
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