Kool Keith has a long-held reputation for being one of hip-hop’s most eccentric and unusual characters, as well as one of the genre’s most prolific artists, recording and releasing 33 albums as a solo artist and through a number of different collaborations, including the legendary Ultramagnetic MCs.
The Bronx-born emcee’s 34th album, Black Elvis 2 is the long-awaited sequel to 1999’s Black Elvis/Lost in Space. The album officially dropped today through Mello Music Group and features guest spots from Marc Live, Raaddrr Van, Dynamite, Agallah and Ice-T. Sonically, the album reportedly sees the legendary and eccentric Bronx-born emcee taking his information-age rhymes to a whole new label with a sound that’s equal parts street shit hip-hop and outer space.
Earlier this month, I wrote about “The Formula,” a partial Analog Brothers reunion featuring Marc Live, a.k.a. Marc Moog and Ice T, a.k.a. Ice Oscillator alongside Kool Keith, a.k.a. Black Elvis and Keith Kong. Marc Live’s eerie street boom-bap meets outer space production built around shimmering and atmospheric synths and skittering boom bap beats that’s roomy enough for each emcee to spit swaggering bars full of pop culture references and mayhem with each emcee seemingly pushing each other. But by far, it’s probably the hardest and most menacing you’ve heard Ice-T in quite some time.
Admittedly, I missed this in my email but earlier this year Kool Keith shared the Marc Live-produced album single “Space Mountain,” which pairs a trippy yet menacing production featuring glistening synth arpeggios, a chopped up alien-like vocal sample and skittering boom bap with the legendary emcee’s wildly unique flow full of pop culture references, playful word play and absurdist non-sequiturs. In some way, this track is the sound of the 38th century Jovian hip-hop.
