New York – Queens is the city’s best rap borough. The form was invented in the Bronx, dudes from Harlem and Brooklyn are best at flash and attention grabbing, and Staten Island is the Shaolin, but rappers from Queens are historically the most lyrical and have the most complex personalities. Back in the 90s, Nas set new standards for virtuosity in mic skills and writing ability, and Prodigy from Mobb Deep spat marvelously conflicted lines that were simultaneously as introspective as they were fatalistic. Their torch is carried today by Queens rappers like Action Bronson and Heems and Despot and even Nicki Minaj, who have multiple, apparently contradictory lyrical interests and singular weird personas. The latest entrant to the lineage of Queens hip-hop is SHIRT.
The unsigned rapper is most known for his promotional stunts like making a fake New York Times piece and his shirtfuckedrihanna campaign, but if he keeps putting out stuff like his new album MUSEUM, his music will soon eclipse his media manipulation. He blends classicist New York rap with a broad palette of knowledge (world music, contemporary art) to create an intelligent perspective that belongs solely to him. In Queens terms, he’s PS 1 and Five Pointz at the same time.
SHIRT comes out blazing on opening track “Used To Go By T.Shirt,” a hook-less two-and-a-half minute display of his internal rhyming prowess. He brags about smoking a blunt and going to MoMA to see the Matisse exhibit, which is a concise summary of his ethos. He expresses his desire to own as many cars as Jerry Seinfeld. He calls himself the Louis CK of rap, a claim also made by Danny Brown on a Heems track. He says “the best girls in the world think I’m the worst,” a perfectly conflicted Queens boast delivered with the right mix of pride and regret.
The next track, “In the Mirror,” is an alternate-universe hit single with urgent drums, wordless auto-tuned hook, and SHIRT’s ultra-confident flow (“she said ‘I love our bravado,’ I said ‘yeah, I know’”). After that, he switches gears on the brooding “This Pain,” which meditates on the relationship between pain and art (“it’s real life, I can’t edit”), and “No Reason,” whose beat is built from samples of the Dave Matthews Band and Carlos Santana covering “All Along the Watchtower.” He follows that up with “Woodwork,” the first of two tracks on the album where he raps over beats from DJ Shadow’s classic Endtroducing… These four songs are a dazzling display of SHIRT’s knowledge of hip-hop history, pop cultural acumen, bravado, sadness, hunger, and creativity.
The second half of MUSEUM isn’t as strong as the first. Its highlight is “Rain Dance,” where he adopts an A$AP Rocky-style flow over a lonely, noirish saxophone loop. He says, “I feel like this some shit that Yams would like,” shouting out the late A$AP Mob founder. Yams probably would have liked “Rain Dance.” It’s weird and classic at the same time. Also interesting is “Gone,” where SHIRT mashes up Brazilian bossa nova with trap drums. The album’s lone misstep is the closer, “Monica,” a ten-minute track that consists of seven minutes of silence followed by three minutes of a short loop that feels like a RZA outtake. It feels pointless, but it is a fittingly risky and experimental end to the album.
MUSEUM is available for purchase from one of SHIRT’s many websites. You can keep up with his whereabouts via his Twitter.
Liam Mathews
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