Show Me The Body and B L A C K I E “CREEP”
Kid Rock has gone full MAGA. Limp Bizkit is currently on tour with Corey Feldman and Riff Raff. With the snarled “CREEP,” NYC trio Show Me The Body and noise rap progenitor B L A C K I E have provided a necessary counterweight to the twisted activities of a previous generation of rap rockers. I’m sure all parties involved would bristle at the suggestion that the damaged music they are making here is rap rock, but I’ve always believed in a big tent and a redemptive arc for the genre.
Now we are cooking: DoFlame is a young Canadian rager whose crew Off Leash blends the best of Y2K-era skate, rap, and punk aesthetics into a product that shmacks harder than Bam Margera punching his father. The new DoFlame single seems to fit more squarely into the contemporary hardcore idiom, but there’s enough feral rap rock energy to make it more interesting than most similar music. (That new SPEED record is pretty perfect, though, for what it is.)
Skrilla isn’t rap rock, but the intensity of his voice is enough to get a pit going at Gathering of the Juggalos. His beats often have an occult edge. “I just woke up, popped a perc / I ain’t even brush my grippers.” This is American music, no doubt about it.
Time for the swerve that we deserve: A crucial update from United Jump Front, the number one American jumpstyle crew currently in operation. Last week, Jump Front operative JESSXO dropped a hard house remix of “My Neck, My Back” by Khia; in a just world, Bad Boy Bill would be dropping it every night. Somebody get it to Bad Boy Bill! Pummeling and wild.
It’s not rap, it’s not rave, but it sure is indie rock—it’s the new single from former JMB interviewees Voyeur. “Velvet” is a fire slow burner that sounds like later Sonic Youth or maybe Blonde Redhead. It builds a tension that is eventually released during a percussive, funky punky outro that points to a different end of the NYC no wave continuum. Or something. I don’t know. I’m a music blogger.
MIX OF THE WEEK: Freak “Live in Marseilles”
Every few months, I stop by the Mixtape Magic YouTube archive to check out what’s been going on. Though the account has slowed down its pacing, they still batch out a grip of rave tapes on occasion. Recorded in France around 1995, this set from UK hardcore legend Freak delivers a solid hour of noisy gabber, filtered through a patina of tape hiss. If you ever feel all alone—and you will—just know that you can always find a friend in a distorted kick drum.