Wrapped Up in Rap: a Listen to “Beets. Memes. Life.” by Blank Face Villain
The harmonizer hits. Rich textures play between your ears. The first thought I had once “Grapefruit” began was that it sounded almost like a hip-hop Crash Test Dummies track crossed with the deeply layered production of Glass Animals. Frank and nostalgic, “Beets. Memes. Life.” is simply a great album. It’s unique, it explores many flavors of hip hop, and it creates a lovely sonic palate that continually serves up witty, honest lyrics, and carefully curated and produced instrumentals.
As is familiar with rap albums on Soundcloud, one of the tracks has thousands of plays while the rest of the tracks have far fewer. This is a serious injustice to “Beets. Memes. Life.” Every track is different and thoroughly enjoyable, and the album fits together excellently as a whole. Thick synth samples, referential sounds, and brilliant featured verses lay the solid foundation for the narrative of the album.
As one would expect from an album that has “Memes” in the title, there are references to internet culture and (duh) memes. There’s a sneaky Blonde Redhead sample in “Burn,” which has the “High IQ” Rick and Morty copypasta in the title parenthetical. One of the tracks is titles “Lo-Fi Hip-Hop Anime Chill Beats To Study And Relax To” and though the title is indicative of a formulaic beat, the track itself brings a freshness to the cliche beat style and retains the overall mood of the album while still being able to meme itself.
Blank Face Villain has put together a wonderful little hip-hop gem, and I can’t recommend it enough.
Get the full experience by listening to it on SoundCloud (but for real, it is available to stream across all services):
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