Death Grips: Raw is Revolution

If you know King Midas Sound, then you know what a fan they are of the brutal and aggressive hip hop group Death Grips. Kiki Hitomi even did a vocal refix of ‘Beware’ for KMS’ latest mixtape.

The year 2011 in hip hop may be remembered for many things: Lil’ Wayne in American Apparel leggings at the VMA’s, Drake’s penchant for Bill Cosby-esque sweaters, former Bad Boy MC G-Dep being so blown on PCP that he made a trip down to his local NYPD precinct and confessed to a decade-old shooting…TWICE (the first time his confession was refused because the police recognized that Dep was under the influence of said PCP). However the year may also come to be known as a game changer, a time when the counter was reset.

Death Grips’ Ex Military record is a bold and striking display of raw, unsanitized, inyourface sonic assault that challenges what a hip hop record can be. Like a re-amped, sober DMX stumbling in to a Germs show, the Zach Hill collective have offered an answer to the pop brushstrokes, trap talk & Baby Bumpgate currently on offer. E.E. Cummings once said that poetry atrophies when it strays too far from music. Well Hip Hop atrophies when its strays to far from the ass moving, body convulsing, balled fists of fury that their sounds evoke. For all the bullshit hyberbole, the Death Grip’s record is as immediate as anything Premiere, the Shocklee Brothers or Dilla ever laid down. There’s a revolution going on in America at the moment, and if this isn’t already the soundtrack of tumultuous times… it should be.

Ex Military

Death Grips x Kiki Hitomi (pain under the blue sky revoice)

Published November 02, 2011.