No Frills Reviews

Disturbingly thrilling avant-garde hip-hop

The rap game grim reaper. Author of the apocalypse. A dystopian prophet of doom.

It only feels appropriate to talk about Fatboi Sharif as if he’s a semi-mythical force; with the New Jersey rapper offering up an almost otherworldly take on hip-hop. He feels somewhat incomparable and my usual music review descriptors just can’t do him justice; although I’m gonna spend the next few paragraphs attempting to do that.

This latest project is a 10 minute, 1 track EP, alongside long-time collaborator Roper Williams. Whatever Sharif represents to the form of rap, Williams manifests into his production style. Plenty of underground hip-hop gets called experimental, which often just means it has no hooks. But this is truly experimental; its lineage lies in the avant-garde. Listening to this next to more conventional modern hip-hop, I imagine is kinda like Beefheart’s Trout Mask Replica might have sounded in comparison to the Stones or whoever in 1969.

The production on this feels insane. And I’m not using that as a shorthand for insanely good. It’s insane as in it feels like someone losing their sanity. It’s like being taken on a trip through a state of altered consciousness; a disorienting storm of dreams colliding with nightmares. The production of JPEGMAFIA might offer a partial comparison as brief moments of familiarity are soon lost to discomfort. But it would have to be JPEGMAFIA with the BPM slowed right down; this is hazy and hypnotic rather than hyperactive.

Sharif has been labelled as horrorcore in the past. A tag which he rightfully rejects, his music isn’t reliant on cheesy shock tactics. He’s not hitting you with jump scares, he’s hitting you with deep-seated psychological traumas. The darkest horrors come from humans. Pain is often inevitable; predicated on inter-generational and systematic failures. The fear that the computer’s are taking over. The juxtaposition of life’s beauty with the most fucked up tragedies.

Listening to this isn’t always an enjoyable experience, it’s challenging and outright unsettling. But, it’s fucking magnetic. Sharif seems to inhabit a different character with each new verse. You can’t bring yourself to turn away, lest you miss an important detail. And even when you catch the detail, you’re no less confused – “PJ Harvey saved the projects from copyright infringement” – what the fuck? Sharif’s lines will often leave you rushing to Google to try to glean some understanding.

Now, I’ve reached this stage and realised I’ve barely attempted to actually describe what this sounds like, but somehow that feels fitting. Because Sharif and Williams defy easy explanation. There’s no answers at the end of this, only more questions. What have I just experienced and what does it mean? I don’t know, but I need to go back for more.

(I think I worked out the PJ Harvey line BTW. It’s funny)

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