ALL CAPS Weekly 002: Levelling up, pulling Threads, and paying respect to MF DOOM
Dreamville features dominate amid new drops from Mick Jenkins, Tkay Maidza and Lupe Fiasco
Ahoy Cappers! Look, I won’t front — I’m a busy and tired man who just wants to sit on my new couch to play my newly-borrowed-from-a-friend copy of Zelda. As such, this intro will be brief:
In the papers, we’ve got long-awaited news on the circumstances of MF DOOM’s passing, before taking a more light-hearted turn towards Gunna’s smoke detector and its unintended (?) appearance on his latest project. We then wrap up with an off-the-dome opinion piece about how Threads is paving a positive lane for hip hop and social media.
The Weekly Wrap sees Chad and Lenny selecting the same favs before doing some extra curricular discovery to reach a clean seven songs. Tune in for a tracklist dominated by magnifique Dreamville features, as well some highly-anticipated drops from artists such as Mick Jenkins, Lupe Fiasco and TKAY Maidza.
Finally, we share a lil’ bit of gossip about the forthcoming Season 2 debut — which kind of wound up as a cute writeup about Lenny and Chad having star-studded adventures in Brunswick.
Alright, that Nintendo Switch is steaming Cappers. Commence newsletter:
The News
MF DOOM’s family share circumstances of untimely passing
It’s Halloween 2020 — Melbournians are three days out of a 111 day lockdown, attending double-masked Halloween parties and probably celebrating the sudden quarantine of then-president Donald Trump.
The vibes are high for most of us, but hip hop heads are still down — lamenting the sudden, mysterious passing of one Daniel Dumile, aka MF DOOM.
Nearly three years on, DOOM’s initially concealed cause of death has been explained as a reaction to taking ACE inhibitors. To make matters worse, the hospital he attended has been accused of neglecting Dumile’s much needed care leading to his death.
After taking two doses of prescribed blood pressure medication, hip hop’s designated villain had a severe reaction known as Angioedema — resulting in swelling in his throat, tongue and lips.
During an inquest hearing, DOOM’s wife explained he was unable to alert staff when he needed help because his buzzer was left out of reach. He’d phoned his wife to explain he had trouble breathing, and she then called the hospital separately to alert a nurse to the emergency situation.
She also said she was unable to visit DOOM due to then COVID-restrictions, saying:
“I was not able to see him until the 31st [of October] – that’s when the respirator was turned off that was helping him breathe.”
DOOM’S family received an apology from the hospital, which reads:
“I would like to offer our sincere condolences to [MF Doom’s] family, friends and fans at this difficult time. I apologise that the care he received was not to the standard we would expect.”
— St. James Hospital chief medical officer, Dr Hamish McLure
MF DOOM passed at 49 years old, and while his living legacy ends with a somber echo of medical neglect and the biases in western healthcare, nothing can diminish the metal-faced villains trailblazing career and impact on hip hop.
GUNNA needs to replace his battery
For real that shit is beeping in the background of his vocals on several tracks
— Reddit User Blaze_News
Georgia rapper GUNNA recently hit the No.1 Spot on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Chart for his fourth studio album ‘A Gift & a Curse’, blessing over 100 million listeners with autotune flows and the supple tones of a malfunctioning smoke alarm.
Wait, wha?
A sleuthy Redditor posted on r/Rap that Gunna’s smoke alarm had been firing off in the studio, littering multiple cuts of the album with a desperate, bleeping plea to have its battery replaced.
The featuring detector can be heard spitting 2,800 hz of straight bars on both ‘p angels’ and ‘go crazy’ at 28 seconds and 55 seconds respectively.
While it’s unclear where the recording happened or why the battery wasn’t replaced, one has to wonder why the lil’ beepers’ adlibs weren’t just noise gated out — but hey, I’m not the viral rapper.
What will Instagram’s Threads app mean for hip hop?
Mini opinion-piece/observations here, but firstly, shoutouts to Bandlab for posting….. this:
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Straight fire — in that it has the capacity to burn permanent glabellar furrows into any unfortunate witnesses forehead 🔥🔥🔥
But the track raises an interesting point — musicians can indeed use Twitter, but are instead on Threads🤷. While on Threads, rappers and fans alike are finding a much-needed reprieve from the likes-driven doom-scrolling of Twitter.
With a smaller emphases on like-counts, a new algorithm, and a general positive vibe from its collective Twitter refugee userbase, the app has done something which other platforms subtly failed to do — it centers the user.
While I’ve followed countless rappers on countless platforms for years, Threads feels like I’m getting a direct channel to artists, unmarred by distracting Trending sections or constant political debates broiling out of thin air.
It’s early days, but only a week into Threads and its clear we’re getting a different kind of content from what was on Twitter. If the good pace remains, and if Meta can keep the chuff of divisive algorithms out of its new platform, we might see a social media where rappers actually talk about rap!
What do you think about Threads? Has it changed your social media interactions with musicians and hip hop?
Tracks of the Week
In our Weekly Wrap we’ve got a return from Mick Jenkins leading up to his freshly announced album ‘The Patience’. The single ‘Smoke Break-Dance’ is a jazzy first-time collaboration with Dreamville favourite JID.
Next up, more Dreamville features with EARTHGANG’s ‘Bobby Boucher’ featuring Benji and members of Spillage Village. A simple beat sporting delirious, southern-drenched flow switches that would fit perfectly on any EA Sports game soundtrack.
Lupe Fiasco is continuing his streak with ‘CHANNEL No3’, a song seemingly hand-tailored for video game nerds like Lenny.
If my Genesis could sing, it’d be crowned the king
Of R&B, make me fall in love with the screen— Lupe Fiasco
Tell ‘em Lupe!
Next up, the rapper who couldn’t sit still and the master of rear-ended cunnilingus team up for Tkay Maidza’s and Flume’s ‘Silent Assassin’. Maidza continues to hold the throne for Australia’s electronic hip hop scene, spitting everchanging rhythms over Flume’s signature production.
Cookin Soul does what the name suggests on ‘Common frees’, a track which could mix perfectly with Adult Swim’s late-night ad-rolls, Conway the Machine hits up D Smoke, 7xvethegenius and Bangladesh for a rags-to-riches ode to the comeup on ‘Andre 3000’, and finally, tobi lou joins FARADA, Chief Keef, Saba and internetboy for a bouncy bop on ‘Hit & Run’.
Season 2: Processing…
We’ve recorded our libacious debut for season two, but we’re holding off on release for a week later (disappointed studio audience soundbyte).
Playing that bad-boy back in the editing booth made us realise new seasons aren’t determined by loud proclamations and host attitudes alone — they need to feel different.
A cultural moment, an occassion marking the improvement between then and now.
To that effect, Lenny asked a favour from one Bill Bingley (aka Brunswick’s Jeff Tweedy) to help fast-track a new backing beat for the season. Let me tell you, the man’s a musical chupacabra. We knocked out a drum-machine, bass and glistening keys ballad in the span of 2.5 hours. Thanks Jeff!
Furthermore, ushering in the new season will be CBCB’s neighbouring cafe-owner, Juan from Juanitos. We can’t yet reveal what beautiful, heart-felt intro he spared for the ALL CAPS lads while recording, but I can reveal that it’s riddled with profanity.
So yeah, no podcast this week! (Outraged, despairing, storming-the-stage-from-the-bleachers studio audience soundbyte).
In the meantime, suss out our cross-genre playlists! They were super-fun to make and really highlight the breadth of what hip hop can do when drawing from other genres:
Alright Cappers! Until next week, stay warm and keep spinning new tunes❤️
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