Sacramento-based Death Grips is a rap group formed by MC Stefan Burnett (pictured above), producer Andy Morin and drummer Zach Hill, the later which is known for his work with Hella and Boredoms amongst a dozen famy projects more. Death Grips have been filed punk rap, noise rap, or avant-garde hip-hop. All this is true, however when Hill categorizes the bands’ attitude in an interview with Pitchfork “future primitivism” it says more about the music than any industry-standard genre term. The primitivism/Third World coquetry reminds of early post punk and industrial, think Pop Group, Slits and Throbbing Gristle. In the early 1980s hip-hop and post-punk did not only share aesthetics but showcased musical parallels, too. Synthesizers and drum machines were affordable for the first time, collage music and DJ culture hadn’t branched yet, and UK punks, rappers from NYC and Berlin sound experimenters were equally eager to let the revolution of 1977 not choke onto its own puke. More than 30 years later, Death Grips draw from this primordial ooze and deliver the most radical and ruthless rap music you have heard in, well, 30 years.
Stream: Death Grips – Hustle Bones (Epic)
“The Money Store” is Death Grips’ second full-length and debut with Sony-affiliated Epic after “Ex-Military” has been published as a free download on the internet in 2011. The new album is not an inch less radical than its precursor but channels the bands’ power and perversion much better. Furthermore, it is surprisingly catchy – Death Grips have at least three hit singles: “Hustle Bones”, “The Cage”, and “Bitch Please” shouldn’t leave your head for a while. Boy, these hooks! Morin and Hill create the raw and brutal instrumentals for Burnett to bellow his ODB-meets-Bad Brains vocals over. Obviously these guys give a shit on hip-hop’s fetish of market-driven production and substantial bass, and they do so on purpose. Lo-fi caveman music dumb only to those who don’t know, Death Grips clearly seperate from noise rap colleagues like Dälek or Sensational. While the genre notoriously suffers from form-over-function, it is exciting to discover the tight songs hidden under Death Grips’ imagery and muscular posing. The importance of future primitivism for contemporary rap music can not be overestimated.
Stream: Death Grips – The Cage (Epic)
“The Money Store” is out on Epic. Stream it on the Death Grips Soundcloud.
