It’s both the most zen album of the summer, and the most distressing. A string of buzzing jazzy instrumentals, carried by rhythms between two waters, on which poses one of the most brilliant rappers of our time, who plunge without realizing it into a sublime ataraxia while striking down glaucous harangues on the state of the world, in the state a vacant lot of Long Island, smashed concrete esplanade between two freeway ramps, strewn with carcasses of cars corroded by pollution and the wind. First on the cover, Roc Marciano, an artist with a winding career since he fled the sirens of commercialism, a self-proclaimed “rockin’ suave” rapper adored by purists for his impassive and talkative flow. In second, the Californian Alchemist, enormous producer of all American raps for twenty years (from Mobb Deep to Kendrick Lamar) who has never cut ties with the underground. Together for the first time, the two produced what they imagined to be possibly the best rap album possible, a collection of boom-bap bombs obsessed with the blue note, ideal of nightmare music that precipitates the deepest of catharsis. .
Old-fashioned, classicist? We recognize of course in the background the silhouettes of a few eternals, MF Doom or Gil Scott-Heron but the two undoubtedly refer to it like others to the gospel. Who can refute especially the mad invention that escape pieces like Horns of Abraxas (an organ and rolls ad infinitum), Déjà vu (zero beats, Marciano in a corner of the spectrum, who seems to grumble leaning on a crumbling wall), Zig Zag Zig (lethargic funk until the last breath)? We count in all and for all three guests (Action Bronson, Boldy James, Ice-T), the formula is abrupt and always the same – no chorus, hubbub, a verse and then leaves – but everything is addictive or almost : The Elephant Man’s Bones is inevitable.
