"Go Hard" - Al Bundy

We've gotta warn you upfront: it takes a special kind of warped mind to sit through this past the first 2 bars. This is megadeaths beyond car crash metaphors, a perfectly paired video & song as empty as the plains of Antarctica at noon. There is nothing here -- but yet it is a special kind of nothing behind the eyes of name-thief and attempted rapper Al Bundy. His yearning for pure celebrity shines through like a sick, feverish mirror of The Whole Damn Rap Game, verily.

There's no way this cat could convince me that he listens to rap. No amount of bonafides or obscure album names would change my mind. The whole "go hard / viagra" punchline thing was dumb-as-fuck played out while the World Trade Center still had working elevators. Right now, it's 2014. This isn't about generational cycles, this is about kids who "rap" because they know that's how people get famous.

A strange thing to say about a chunk of art, but still, it's best qualities conspire against it. The fact that this is such a technically accomplished piece of work for a low-budget video only emphasizes what a blank wall you're staring at.

So consider this a low water mark, a placeholder for the Most Vapid Rap Video we've seen so far. There are thousands of contenders coming for that title, so enjoy it while it lasts, Al Bundy. Enjoy it while it lasts.

"Buck a Cop" - China Mac

Given the brisk pace of killings by police officers this year, it was pretty fucking inevitable that this would happen. And rest assured, it will happen again. Back in August we featured an entertaining UK jam called "All Cops Are Bastards," but that was more socio-political critique type shit. This right here? This an open provocation to kill police officers.

It's easy to take that stance, of course. Body Count's 1991 pop masterpiece "Cop Killer" established a pretty clear precedent on this one. The notion that Ice-T dealt with a "backlash" is fucking absurd: he made millions on tour while a bunch of police unions made token gestures of protest, and now decades later Ice-T plays a cop on TV. Perhaps China Mac will mellow out in his old age, too, but for now, this is some snarling entertainment.

This cat has a big image problem, insofar as he raps a lot tougher than he looks. It is also interesting that he identifies as Asian American but looks like an Italian model. A lot of crackers love to say they "don't see race" and this is a rare case where that would actually be true: hopefully the Gawker crowd can give this cat a couple million YouTube plays and embrace his multi-cultural message.

The video is tightly edited, beautifully shot, very energetic, but ultimately just surreal. An absurd juxtaposition of powerful images and trite lyrics. That's not a dismissal, though: this could easily be the most emblematic video of 2014. Use the hashtag, like it on Facebook, buy the shirt. This is politics now.

"Function / Void" - The Bug

I have no idea what the sweet fuck this is supposed to be, precisely, but I like it. There is rapping involved -- some rapid-fire London patois grime shit, delivered like such a specimen should be -- but this here is all Art. The treatment dominates the material, it's too well-conceived to frame the music as anything but a soundtrack...if not an afterthought.

Unfolding like origami, simple at first, all subtle flash, and then the bridge hits. The render depth here is beyond belief, a Ninja Tune video that James Cameron or Christopher Nolan would have happily paid for a thousand times over. Once the paroxysm really makes impact, this plays out like a mash-up of 1984 ... and Inception by way of Nolan's obscure debut, Following.

When motherfuckers are out here spending a billion dollars on Transformers movies and merchandise, it is impossible to fault anyone for making brilliant art out of Ninja Tune b-sides. I would hope the future is full of billionaire heiresses who want to sponsor cutting-edge surrealism like this, for no damn reason. Humanity needs it.

"Take it Off" - 2 Live Crew

Well...that happened. That's right, 2014 shit from 2 Live Crew, and boy howdy let me tell you what right now, this shit is fucking bizarre. And awesome.

One minute intro skits? A dance routine from "Hip Hop Kidz" that looks like something from a 90's sitcom? Trick Daddy and Flava Flav in the building for no coherent reason? Mannie Fresh acting like an EDM bro-core DJ? All of this exists in a Ketamine hallucinatory space, beyond good and evil and bad taste, a short film made by aliens trying to act like old rappers trying to be relevant.

Basically, you have to see this. Fuck yes.

"Lucid Dream" - Nocando x Dam Funk

We fucking love psychedelic rap videos and this right here is a doozy. Not that dude is necessarily into psychedelics -- as he puts it, "I just love life so much my wife gets jealous." We also love Dam Funk and this jamalam is straight from the hands of the grandmaster. Big props to Ryan Calvano for an exceptional piece of work, the visual here are gorgeously demented.

Doug Benson, You Lucky Motherfucker

Well played, daug.

R3AL Y3TI RAP 2014

Bloggers were sucking too much; we had to get involved here.



It is impossible to stop listening to rap. Rap is repetitive bullshit, rap is endlessly creative, too. We fucking love rap. We're not mocking it. We are talking shit. This is that Real Yeti Rap.

THE INBOXXX is what we do to submissions. Not all of them. Hit YoHumpJones@gmail.com and it will at least get listened to. Parts of it will. The beginning parts.

DISPATCHES has been described as "so fucking stupid I don't know why anybody would read this hater ass dribble" by the author, Louis Mackey.

#CLASSIC is, well...nothing very creative, that's for sure. Exactly what it says on the label. We made it a hashtag because we think hashtags are dumb and obnoxious.

The rest is just dope shit we like.

"The Eighth Tower" - Algorhythms

When I was fresh out of High School, rare books were still hard to find. Jacques Vallee's Passport to Magonia was prohibitively expensive, and his Invisible College was just plain vanished. Now they're both back in mundane paperback print, just in time for a new generation of utterly illiterate iPad mouthbreathers to ignore them.

Even more rare, though, were the Occult tomes that were barely 'in print' to begin with -- one of which was "War in Heaven" by Kyle Griffiths. Thanks to the tireless archival work of the Biblioteca Pleyades, the whole thing is archived online. I tracked down "War in Heaven" at around the same time I finally got ahold of James Shelby Downard's "King Kill 33," which was simply a photocopy of his original typed manuscript, and Kerry Thornley's rambling "Confessions." The Downard turned out to be a disappointment, more poetry than anything else. I'm still thinking over Thornley's book years later. Kyle Griffiths, however, did lasting damage to my psyche.

I could ramble for days, but let's inject some meat solution into the mix:

Chapter Six: In The Eighth Tower (1975), Keel concluded that UFO contact reports had a common origin with certain very intense religious and occult experiences, such as visitations from gods, angels, or demons. He postulated that the cause of all these events is a natural phenomenon, which he names the “Superspectrum.”

Keel’s Superspectrum seems to be based loosely on Jung’s concept that the human race possesses a “collective unconscious,” but he carries the idea much further than Jung did. Jung had conceived of the collective unconscious only as a body of information stored in the subconscious minds of many different individuals that causes all of them to think or behave in similar ways.

Keel carries this concept much further, and postulates that the Superspectrum involves specialized forms of matter and energy unknown to present-day science. He borrows concepts from occultism and coins scientific-sounding new terms to describe them. His Superspectrum simply seems to be another way of saying “influence by spiritual beings and psychic powers.”

However, he doesn’t conclude that the Superspectrum is a being or group of beings, as the occultists usually do with their concepts of gods, demons, and spirits. Instead, it is simply a kind of natural phenomenon with a “computer-like intelligence.”



EELRIJUE is being finalized this month, and all of the themes we baked into that cosmic casserole are coming back to haunt us. I mean that in a perfectly literal sense: our lives are haunted by a cast of characters that is barely even humanoid. Be careful what you make songs about, kids...

"Ghost at the Finish Line" - Quelle Chris

Fuck yeah. A low budget fever dream, creative, brave and fun stuff. Quelle Chris is one of my favorite rap mammals, an unpredictable and bluntly genuine free spirit type from Detroit. The good people at Mello Music Group released his last album, which has a name in common with this song.

"EYE RHINO" - Bishop

At first you might think you're in for some Marko shit, but no: this is pretty rad and hella weird. Engaging, fast-moving Qi Gong Surrealism rap is a genre in short supply, and this is a strong chi shot right here.

Keep submitting great low-budget video, folks. This has been an inspirational summer so far. Kids these days are fucking smart and they're doing awesome stuff.

THE INBOXXX: "Half Full" - MarKO

Hump Jones: Welcome back to THE INBOXXX. This week we've got something beyond human comprehension for you. This was an actual email submission for a rap blog. I could tell right off the video still we were in serious trouble.

DJ Squid: This right here is Bananamal as fuck.

Hump Jones: Isn't this a Casio preset? That intro was fucking intense. I don't think I'm ready for this.

DJ Squid: Nah, this is more of a medley. I bet this is his album sampler. I would like to state for the record, this is the best email submission copy ever. It is just titled "Awesome Video" and the body of the message was "Awesome Video" with the YouTube link. Okay, now we're definitely just hanging out in this dude's bedroom and it is getting kinda awkward. Speed painting is very deep.

Hump Jones: Now all of a sudden we're on a bridge and he's camouflaged like a normal bro? Can you imagine actually running into this guy and talking to him and gradually realizing how deep and weird those waters really are?

DJ Squid: He likes Skrillex and Dave Matthews and rapping over Casio loops. Ask him about his paintings. He has rooms full of paintings. This is starting to get pretty real, he's dropping some love raps right now.

Hump Jones: "EH OH EL I'm kidding but seriously I'm not" is the lyrical high point so far, I gotta admit, that had me dying pretty hard. This dude really seems to like trains, now we're on the railroad in the snow and he's doing the Thom Yorke.

DJ Squid: Yeah, the full Thom Yorke. Damn. The best part of this whole video so far is the random jailbait ass creeper porn shot that scrolls up to the gigantic blue demon owl towering over a bunch of dancing teenagers. That was pretty memorable. I wonder if all those kids realize they're going to be sacrificed to dubstep Moloch.

Hump Jones: This is really testing my fucking stamina.

DJ Squid: Yeah, pucker up, pal. We started this, it's too late to turn back now. This is so sublimely weird.

Hump Jones: This is very post-structuralist, I like how he keeps undermining the parameters of convention by rhyming about Happy Meal McFlurries over psychedelic painting montages. This is the apex of conscious rap, the peak in the collective Bro Mushroom Trip that has been rippling across America since the late 90's. Mostly it's just agonizing, though.

DJ Squid: I gotta comment on the fact this kid is raphands-ing pretty hard in front of a Mercedes SUV. I don't know what that does for his street credit either way. I'm betting this delicate flower doesn't roll very deep.

Hump Jones: I feel like a lot of these songs are the result of a feedback vacuum in his life This material is brain to bedroom to pro tools.

DJ Squid: These booth shots are intense. His rap hands are basically an EDM seizure, that whole shit is new to me. Wow. DON'T LET HIM BE IN HIS ZONE.

Hump Jones: Yeah, I would earnestly advise this guy's friends to keep him out of his zone, at all times and at all costs. I bet this is the emotional closing track we're being blessed with right now.

DJ Squid: Then it all washed out into deep poetry and the best text graphics in internet history. After taking so damn long, now it feels like it was over too soon.

Hump Jones: You don't mean that.

DJ Squid: I do not.

"Night Owls" - FDR prod. Dr. Quandary

This gorgeous Dr. Quandary production has been a big hit, especially with the European rap heads. This is the closing cut from FDR's debut EP, "Fear of Death and the Need for Reproduction," which I have already bloviated about at some length. Gird yourself for more, beginning immediately.

This week the EP got an excellent and insightful review from Alex at The Underground Vault, who cited a certain lack of cohesiveness & thematic consistency to the project. He's hardly the first person to make that point, and yet we find ourselves in a very...Crowleyesque position, as the authors. Bottom line, FDR is not an accessible project, and we are surely guilty of being Willfully Obscure.

Still, making beautifully doomed cult projects -- "cult" is being invoked here in a literal & legal sense -- is the entire reason we started World Around Records in the first place. I am happy to report the next FDR project will do nothing to illuminate our methods and motives. Stay woke.

#CLASSIC: "Make it Plain" - Divine Styler

Fundamentally, I have never understood most of what Divine Styler is styling divinely about, but that's not a problem for me. I've always thought of this particular cut as his Crossover Hit -- too catchy for college crackers to deny, despite the fact it's a Five Percent PSA, front to back.

I love rappers who wander wherever they want to go, and when I first got into Divine Styler, my writing was straight from the Gift of Gab / Eminem template of metronome multisyllables. It took me years to appreciate the elegant simplicity of a GZA and I admire the Aikido pockets of modern writers like Has-Lo and Elucid and Ka, all minimalists with flawless taste.

Now, this next cut was my jam during early High School Rap Awakening stages. This is a world apart from that bubblegum funk we started with...



For a 17 year old with a face full of LSD, you can see how the disjointed hypno-flow could connect with that DJ Shadow dark shit and do some real damage to a young brain. Divine Styler was like a West Coast Sir Menelik to my idiot ears, captivating and totally impenetrable.

"Stuck in the Past" - Kool Keith

The Pitch: "The legendary Kool Keith and New Jersey hip-hop producer Keith Science team up to bring you some crazy ill shit!"

The Verdict: Truth in advertising.



New ranting from Kool Keith is good news for the humanoid species, but this was an especially fresh slice, right here. Kool Keith has always been the velour Godfather of the stupid simple, yet crazy catchy, repetitious rap hook. His God level ninja powers are in full effect here. This cut has a timeless feel, which is not intended as a backhanded compliment on the boom bap template. This is a perfect MPC banger, spacious and raw.

#CLASSIC: "Terror Works" - Sir Menelik

One of the first rap songs to truly blow my mind. The drugs helped, sure, but this still stands as a highwater mark for NYC lyrical wildstyle 90's shit.

"Fake Surfers" - Zilla Rocca & The Shadowboxers

A superbly hot mess of a video that perfectly suits this fever dream of a rap track. A strong, weird lead single from the upcoming Zilla Rocca & The Shadowboxers album No Vacation for Murder. Best enjoyed in gently altered states.

Algorhythms: Deluxe Edition - THE TURQUOISE TAPE

EELRIJUE is coming. To celebrate, Algorhythms has remastered their eponymous debut EP, along with several salient singles, to create The Turquoise Tape. If you're not into rap cassettes, no worries: you can get this digitally, too, in all the multifarious formats that Bandcamp provides. A great soundtrack for Tulpa creation, egregore binding, or just general experimentation with Solomon's Lesser Key.

Fortune 5000 - "The Lifestyles EP"

SO PSYCHED TO HAVE THIS DROPPING TODAY...IT'S BEEN A LONG EMOTIONAL JOURNEY, THO...WE MADE THIS TRIUMPHANT MASTERPIECE UNDER SPIRITUALLY ADVERSE CONDITIONS BECAUSE FRIENDSHIP IS DOPE...SLICK NICK AND JUSTIN RHYMES, ASHEVILLE TO BURLINGTON RAP-STRAVAGANZA OLD SCHOOL FREAKOUT-ATHON, WHAT?...BUT REALLY, WHAT, THOUGH...WE STILL RAP THE RAPS AND RHYME THE RHYMES NO MATTER WHAT, FORTUNE 5000, WE GOT A LOT MORE RAPS IN STORE...WE SAY BROTHER BUT NOT BRO, BRO...WE LIKE FORESTS AND ANIMALS, PEOPLE ARE COOL, TOO...WE JUST WANT TO ROCK BEATS AT YOUR PARTIES, BOOK US TO PLAY RAP SHOWS AT YOUR PARTIES AND WE WILL COME AND DO THAT...THIS EP IS MADE TO BE PLAYED LOUD AT PARTIES OF ANY SIZE, AND OUR RAPS ARE CRAZY SERIOUS! FORTUNE 5000, THAT'S THE NAME!

"Watching Rome Burn from Aventine Hill" - Louis Mackey

Acid Reign - Synergy

These cats are always pushing the envelope just right. They are the rightful heirs of the Freestyle Fellowship lineage, to my hick ears, but this shit is far from a throwback purity ring. Definitely best enjoyed in altered states.