Rhino XXL
Released
The first collaboration between visionary hip-hop producer Infinity Knives and rapper Brian Ennals is less antagonistic and furious than their work would become. It has a lysergic lassitude even when the tempos are fast; “Lucid” is anything but, and a lot of tracks are built around digital pings and chirps. “The Black Power Paradox” offers a hilarious detournement of Bobby Brown’s “Every Little Step” as a platform for gimlet-eyed social critique, while “Ken x Karen” samples racist political agitprop to startling effect and “Trap Pond” could almost be pop music if it wasn’t for the lyrics, which cast relationship issues in stark and bleak (but darkly funny, too) terms.