Elucid’s music is grounded in remark and elevated by creativeness. The New York rapper and producer’s consciousness of the precarious world we reside in and the physique he inhabits expenses his songs with the urgency of the instances. If his final solo challenge, 2022’s I Informed Bessie, was a brighter, extra hopeful counterpoint to the darkish soundscapes and stark imagery of a few of his previous work, REVELATOR is its clear-eyed, clenched-fisted, however no much less hopeful successor. “I squeeze my kids’s hand and stroll arduous in opposition to the wind” he rhymes on “Dangerous Pollen,” giving us a psychological image of a person who persists regardless of the circumstances as a result of he has folks to reside by and their future to combat for.
The type of indie hip-hop Elucid makes is thought for (and generally maligned for) its wordiness, however Elucid’s songwriting right here is distinguished by his economic system of phrases—not their overabundance. When he says, “My favourite month September/I make beautiful infants however I’m executed makin’ N-words” on “Ikebana” you may hear the phrases and really feel a Black father breaking a curse. As an alternative of blitzing with vocabulary, Elucid strives to say one thing emotionally resonant within the fewest phrases attainable. The concise, frenetic songwriting on tracks like “World Is Canine” and the refrains-as-mantras all through the album make REVELATOR as accessible as it’s heady.
The lyrics are complemented by a soundscape of noise, ambient droning, glitches, and distortion courtesy of the artist himself together with producers Jon Nellen, August Fanon, Youngster Actor, The Lasso, DJ Haram, Samiyam, and Saint Abdullah. All of these seemingly disparate components are held collectively by reside instrumentation—particularly drums performed by key collaborator Nellen and dynamic reside bass courtesy of Irreversible Entanglements virtuoso Luke Stewart. On “Slum of a Disregard” Stewart’s taught bassline propels the monitor and maintains its groove solely as gasps give solution to Elucid’s chopped-up voice uttering the phrases “My landlord … is a … Zionist.”
Elucid’s baritone is the sign amid the noise. On the album, his voice alternates between musical instrument, device, and weapon. Typically he seems like he’s studying from a scroll or stone pill (“CCTV”), different instances his tone is as intimate as late-night whispers between lovers in mattress collectively (“SKP”).
