Taking over this month’s playlist feature is a duo now embedded in the Seattle and Chicago music scenes, building production heavy, hyper modern and experimental music across the distance.
“Hello, we are TheRapGang. Thank you for taking time to check out our Monthly Mix Feature. Our two primary members are Horsegirl Desmond (the production king) and sLAy818 (Abraxas’ mouthpiece) and we have a handful of half-alive cadavers that have helped us along the way. Special shout out to TomTommyGun for his rhymes and good times & Sam Strawbridge for his production skills and the will to kill for the gang, but those are only two of many contributors.”
Volume I: High on Hyper Pop
“Let us start by leaving our own personal perceptions at Huxley’s door. Let us see everything at once and harshly mash it all together: glitz… glamor… sex… money… drugs… work… music… culture…. spirituality… emotion. Let us journey into the outer reaches of our conscious cosmos. In fact, fuck it, leave your consciousness behind too. Let’s achieve full ego death.
Do you like getting high on the bass and/or base? What’s the difference anyway? Do you enjoy being one with the eternal beat that overcodes our superficial reality? How Hyper Can Your Mind GET??? Let’s see what there is to see beyond ourselves…” ~sLAy818
“How long will this last, this delicious feeling of being alive, of having penetrated the veil which hides beauty and the wonder of celestial vistas? “ ~Alexander Shulgin, Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story
Volume II: Trapaholics Anonymous
“I started fucking with trap in high school, back when I was poppin’ parents’ oxies at lunch. I enjoyed it: the heavy 808s, the low-quality production, the gangster spirit, the countercultural themes, the whole DIY vibe. But I feel like I didn’t get obsessed with it until one of my best friends (whose favorite artist was arguably Chief Keef) from high school overdosed during the fentanyl epidemic. After that, it clicked, trap is postmodern blues.
You rap about flexing and hustling for the dead and locked-up homies. You engrave their names, places, traumas, and histories in albums for suburban white kids to fuck with and evangelize. Infinitely, forever. Sometimes, to stop the cycle, sometimes to let it play out to show what’s in store for other future trapaholics. My name is sLAy and I am a trapaholic for life, you can @ me on that. RIP Frank forever.” ~sLAy818
Volume III: horse time with Horsegirl Desmond
“Hello it’s Desmond these are songs I want to produce and TheRapGang is how. i have been completely successful in horsegirl this way” ~Horsegirl Desmond
Volume IIII: TheRapGang “SAMPLES”
“These are samples that could or could not have been used in various sonic occurrences by TheRapGang, sLAy818, &/or Horsegirl Desmond. Who knows? All I know is that TheRapGang insists that the aspiring artists joining us in this temporal headspace should violently plunder any meaningful samples from this playlist, and anywhere else they find creativity in this desolate crater we all supposedly live on. DMCA us all to hell, who cares, let’s just make art baby! Let chaos ensue … Let creativity cultivate. Burn it all down and build it better with the rubble.” ~sLAy818 & Horsegirl Desmond