It's a safe bet that there are hundreds of EPs' worth of unreleased material from the late, great DJ Rashad, the beloved figurehead of Chicago's Teklife crew. Rashad Harden, along with lifelong friend and collaborator DJ Spinn, was at the forefront of footwork's manifest destiny until his tragic death last year; his last full-length release, 2013's Double Cup, is often considered the genre's high watermark. Posthumous four-track EP 6613 is the icon's first solo Hyperdub release since that album, and it arrives in a year overflowing with stellar footwork releases, as though some higher power attuned to avant garde dance music felt sorry for the world's loss. There's been Dark Energy, a vision from Gary producer Jlin's apocalyptic Afrofuture, and most recently, scene godfather RP Boo's Fingers, Bank Pads & Shoe Prints, its abstracted, essentialized structures evoking De Stijl compositions. In comparison, 6613 feels like comfort food—a return to Rashad's soulful side, though not without its own dark corners.
The EP's four tracks form a gradient of intensity, shifting gradually from cheery and familiar to aggressive and disorienting. "CCP2", in collaboration with Spinn, eases us in with juked-out block party fare. Given warmth by Rashad's signature Rhodes melodies and punctuated by giddy whoops, it's the kind of track that can serve as a gateway drug to those used to four-on-the-floor patterns. (According to Spinn, he and Rashad used to call these "grease tracks," stuff to lubricate the rawer, more rhythmically complicated tracks for unfamiliar club-goers.) Standout track "Cause I Know U Feel," featuring DJ Gant-Man, is built around an jacked-up sample of Alicia Myers' 1984 disco jam "You Got the Best of Me (Say, Say, Say)" that dissolves into heavily-filtered, arpeggiated synth wails. The sweet, coy original becomes belligerent and overpowering, an innocent crush snowballing into obsession.
6613's second half breaks from the soulfulness, channeling a mood closer to the twitchy menace of 2013 cut "I Don't Give a Fuck". "Ya Hot", featuring Spinn and Teklife's Bay Area ambassador Taso, explodes with trap-style 808 patterns gone rogue; just as things start to get claustrophobic, a clearing opens, and whirring drum'n'bass rhythms creep into the open space. On "Do Not Fuck"—a family affair that includes Taso, Spinn, and DJ Manny—Rashad somehow anticipated the current ubiquity of the Kill Bill siren in Atlanta rap, which spin and stutter over what sounds like the Ghost Valley level in "Super Mario Kart". It feels like an encroaching panic attack—although if some intrepid DJ doesn't blend it out of a 56 Nights cut in some after-hours warehouse in the coming months, this summer will have been for naught.
If anything, this collection feels more of a piece with Rashad's Teklife Vol. 1: Welcome To The Chi from 2012 than the smoothed-out, syrupy vibes of Double Cup. That album housed the original version of "CCP"; elsewhere, bright-eyed, polo-sporting Kanye snippets turn menacing and plaintive Gil Scott-Heron samples rumble and thrash. That was always Rashad's essential dichotomy: warm, contagious soul, reality-checked by punishing catharsis. In that way, his music not only echoed his own spirit, but the city he put on his back for so long.
