It seems like a lot of great Chicago rappers have been transplanting to Cali over the last ten years (Typical Cats and Serengeti come to mind). Bummer for the Windy City hip-hop scene, but sometimes it ends in fresh and unexpected collabos. The album Qwazaar and Batsauce recently dropped would be one example. Another would be an EP released yesterday by a project with the moniker s / s / s. It includes aforementioned witty, oddball indie rapper Serengeti, well-known mystical emo bard Sufjan Stevens, and singer and producer Son Lux. That EP, “Beak & Claw,” only includes four tracks. There’s a lot of spacey synth-and-auto-tuned stuff going on. And when it begins to seem a little diverted, Serengeti brings cohesion with solid, humorous raps that also have enough raw sincerity to match Stevens’ vocals. I’d skip the first track and check out “Beyond Any Doubt” if you want to get a good taste of what the project is all about. Sample lyric: "Are you in need of a breathing device?/ Lonely and depressed eating cold fried rice." It’s not the first time ’Geti and Stevens have collaborated, by the way.
Sufjan With Swagger
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