Last November, Das Racist-- the quick-witted rap trio responsible for two of recent memory's most irreverent and engaging mixtapes and one divisive full-length-- made their national TV debut on "Conan", performing lead single "Michael Jackson" from their 2011 album proper, Relax. The scene was set for all the makings of great agit-prop theater: two stone-faced women smacking the living shit out of crash cymbals, crazed instrument swapping, and not to mention an actual Michael Jackson impersonator showing up to bust some time-honored moves during the noisy coda. It was like Andy Kaufman had he been raised on Illmatic and cable TV: Das Racist's secret strength is that you're never quite sure whether they're laughing with you or at you, but when they are at their best, their wise-ass approach also feels inclusive. The "Conan" appearance, however, was anything but welcoming. Heems (Himanshu Suri) and Kool A.D. (Victor Vasquez) mumbled through their verses, leaving the sloppy music to do the heavy lifting. Which made some sense, considering the record they were promoting was built to polarize. The paranoid Relax felt like a warning shot, a suggestion that maybe we'd all gotten a bit too close.
And now we have two of three promised mixtapes from the DR camp, Heems' Nehru Jackets and Kool A.D.'s The Palm Wine Drinkard (hype-man extraordinaire Dapwell's bid is up next.) While both lack the accessibility that marked the first two Das Racist tapes, they allow the rappers to indulge their most far-out ideas. Heems and Kool A.D. sound like they don't care what anyone thinks, and the accompanying freedom brings back some of that early charm. Though the approaches are notably different-- with Nehru Jackets sticking closer to the Das Racist script and Palm Wine Drinkard spending most of its time in the deep end-- the tapes are filled with unexpected payoffs.
If there was any question as to whether Kool A.D. was the true freak of the group, the first few minuts of The Palm Wine Drinkard lay it to rest. The opening track-- featuring the full seven minutes of Outkast's "Spottieottiedopaliscious" instrumental, junked up with what sounds like the din of a busy high school woodshop laid over top-- is annoying and offputting, but things get better. It could have skated by on the easy charms of stuff like "Lagrimas Blancas" (a funky chest-beater that finds A.D. cooling out by the pool in Barcelona, with an appropriate new mantra to match: "Bitch, I'm James Murphy"), or the ass-shakingly friendly remixes of DR's "You Can Sell Anything" and "Booty in the Air". But when A.D. really stretches himself, some of the most bizarre ideas turn into something interesting. Most notable are the three post-Drake R&B tracks, presented free of smugness or irony: The cottony, seductive "Ganglion of Lightnings"-- a 2008 track from A.D.'s Wesleyan group Boy Crisis, repurposed here-- is both sincere and intimate, conjuring a fluid dreaminess that feels sincere. Even when it fails, The Palm Wine Drinkard still entertains.
Heems' Nehru Jackets is a nice counterpoint Palm Wine's experimentation. It's a no-fuss, traditional mixtape full of solid features (Danny Brown, Action Bronson, and Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire) and some terrific production, all credited to Heems' childhood friend Mike Finito. "We definitely listened to a lot of Company Flow and Def Jux stuff in high school," Heems told MTV Hive this month of the pair's affinity for the currently defunct New York indie rap label. It shows-- Finito's production is both enigmatic and hard-edged (plus, there's his dead-on El-P imitation on "Mike Finito Raps Too"), full of junky drums, idiosyncratic sampling, and plenty of Punjabi influences.
Followers of Das Racist (or Heems' Twitter feed, for that matter) know that racial and socio-economic topics are always close at hand, but Nehru Jackets is not an overtly political record. Of the tape's 25 tracks, only a few dig into the specifics of any given issue. "NYC Cops", which first showed up on a Stereogum's Strokes cover tribute compilation, is borderline harrowing, a vitriol-spitting rundown of the NYPD's checkered past, with the too-short, self-explanatory "Juveniles Detained at Guantanamo Bay" striking a similar chord.
But Nehru Jackets as a whole is pretty loose, filled with free-associative raps that find Heems in various states of alertness, sobriety, and engagement. It's also way too long. As he explained in the same Hive interview, putting Mike Finito on was one of the primary goals here: "I figured the only way for people to hear [his talent] is if I hop on these joints and give my man some shine." Finito's work is one of the tape's strengths, but it also leaves Heems with a lot of ground to cover, and much of the material ends up feeling unfocused. In this setting, Heems is at his best when surrounded by better rappers, when he's able to mirror their enthusiasm and energy. If these two mixtapes prove anything, it's that these guys need each other.
