LAFANDAR

This album has been added to 3 public lists:

• 

  2024 Top 20

  Adam Wood

  Back in 2011, the new-to-me rap trio Das Racist swooped in late in the year and put their stamp on eighth place on my list with the laid-back flows and smart/dumb lyricism of their first major label release: Relax. As it turned out, that also proved to be the group’s swan song, with a break-up following the next year.

  But, everything old is new again: thirteen short years later, here’s (one third of Das Racist) MC Heems, laying down another river of charming rhymes over the top of some really fine beats. The latter—courtesy of producer Lapgan—often pull on Heems’s Punjabi heritage, but also run a gamut of inspirations, always keeping things fresh.

  As with a lot of my favourite hip-hop in recent years (and certainly as was the case with Relax), each listen to LAFANDAR heralds a new choice line or couplet. At the time of writing I’d probably pick the passage in which Heems laces together a lot of long vowel sounds on ‘Sri Lanka’, but the showpiece is probably on ‘Kala Tika’ when he pokes fun at the stereotype of east Asians’ English pronunciation, by intentionally switching V and W sounds. Add in some solid features from established favourites (Saul Williams; Open Mike Eagle) and some new names to me (Your Old Droog a particularly great addition), and you’ve got the most entertaining hip-hop LP I encountered in 2024.

• 

  🏆 2024: Top Ten Albums

  humdrum
• 

  Best of 2024

  Jason Dettbarn