Le1f - Dark York (2012): QPOC SHAKUR / #seapunk

http://media.prefixmag.com/site_media/uploads/images/post/l/le1f/artworks-000020165298-ol03zj-original-1_jpeg_630x900_q85.jpg

Per Rev's request, a thread for Dark York because it really is that good.

Le1f is a queer rapper/producer from NYC (although, his queerness isn't the selling point, per se). He's responsible for the production on Das Racist's 'Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell', as well as a bunch of random #seapunk instrumentals.

Some of his earlier tracks are playable over at his soundcloud - http://soundcloud.com/le1f/tracks - particularly of note is 'Born Underwater' which flips a gorgeous Erykah Badu sample.

His first mixtape, Dark York is streaming as of today at Fader, and gets released for download next week. A bunch of tracks on the mixtape are produced by ILM-favourites Nguzunguzu and a bunch of others are produced by his frequent collaborator Boody.

Probably one of my favourite rap releases of 2012 - spanning from twinkly opening-of-B.O.B. synths on ΩΩΩ to this awesome horn riff on 'Wut' to all kinds of other stuff production-wise. Rapping wise, he has a pretty broad spectrum - he goes from interpolating Nicki's bit from Bottoms Up on Bubbles to a string of dated tech/geek battle raps on 'Emulator' to more explicit queer stuff to.... rapping about being a mermaid on 'Fresh'. It's certainly weird at times, but it's worth a listen, even if I'm not pitching it properly.

Vocals are mixed a bit low, but he's got some quotables. My favourite moment right now is still on 'Yup', where he opens a verse with:

Fuck these white dudes / You know I love to fuck these white dudes

Also,

I'm not a gold digger / But if he wants to pay for brunch, cool
Money money money

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBRfRYGPVpY

you can download it now: http://www.mediafire.com/?dbh7uoxw4p2rswj

this has died on my at ~136 out of 158 megs on two different networks. HE IS BREAKING THE INTERNET.

took forever for me to dl

"infinity" and "wut" are the two stand-outs on one listen

that new mykki blanco track bangs though

yes, mykki blanco. i was thinking maybe this thread or another could be the nyc queer rap/neo vogue thread. zebra katz also comes to mind.

Homosexuality and Hip-Hop : The Gay Rapper Thread

thread of ballroom chants, vogueing beats, and associated cuntiness (MikeQ, B. Ames, Vijuan Allure, DJ Sliink, etc.) <--still need sliink removed from title

I haven't had a chance to dig back into this after playing it off the stream a week ago, but I already feel like it's one of the best this year off that one play.

i have to dl this, because that stream was not doing it justice sound quality-wise (hopefully it was just the stream).

still sounds a bit murky to me, but maybe that's what they're going for

the 320 version now posted at the fader is still murky-ish but a lot clearer than the stream esp. the vocals.

venus in furs, boys in nothing

I can barely hear what he's saying. I know it's part of the aesthetic but still...

Hm. I've been able to hear him fine on the download.

The vocals are mixed pretty low.

TOO LOW. :(

I want to move to Dark York.

kk listening on my good headphones I can hear him adequately.

not sure what QPOC means but if anybody needs a free marketing strategy for their new bedroom witch house beats project i suggest you do a chopped-and-screwed tupac mixtape and call it SCREWPAC

queer person of color

oh god i was hoping it was a typo and not an incorporation of that fuck-awful acronym

also is this what seapunk is? really?

at this point i'm pretty sure you can take any reference to seapunk as a joke ref to seapunk

unless it's in big media at which it's a joke ref to seapunk + big media

QPOC Shakur is the pseudonym he puts on his Twitter - I promise it's not my pun.

Although, I think it's pretty clever.

also is this what seapunk is? really?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/fashion/Seapunk-a-Web-Joke-With-Music-Has-Its-Moment.html

http://coralrecords.bandcamp.com/

i liked this (listened off the stream) - i can't really listen to 70 minutes of anything anymore and i wish the vocals weren't so buried but there are some bangers here

'dark york' kinda drags (no pun intended, eh) as a whole, but there are definitely some 6 or 7 great songs in it. the overall murky mastering doesn't help, also.

dark york is my favorite rap album this year cause it's the only one that a) says what's in my head and b) sounds like what i'm actually listening to in 2012

"triple-omega"/"mind body"/"& gomorrah" is such an amazing opening stretch

haven't listened to this yet but the title makes me think of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJeJtK7Q2kk

Mind Body is so great.

But my favourite stretch is probably Wut --> Yup --> Fresh or Gimme Light through Fry Dem.

this is such a densely packed listen, it takes time to get into but it really keeps on giving - just noticed the aaliyah baby sample distorted and resampled on "fresh"

THIS IS FOR MY CUNTS WHO KNOW I CAME TO STUNT

I'm in my castle, I'm king of the beach, I'm princess peach

where was you in 95? where i was in 94.

Really digging "Lavandin" atm; real deep album.

Yeah, that's been one of my sleeper favorites.

Seven songs in, mind = blown

I'm an emperor when they see me in my new clothes

wow this is like the loudest thing on my ipod. i like it but the mix + mastering makes it a harsh listen sometimes.

very dope show tonight. i danced very a lot. (and based on my short chat with him before he went on, he's a pretty nice guy to boot)

very

err strike the second "very" i mean

this is great! so many awesome little lyrical bits bobbing around in the murk

Important: All the lyrics (the actual lyrics, from what I can tell, so presumably le1f is responsible) are up on RapGenius.

If those are the correct lyrics, I'm very disappointed to learn that the line "my twat is just a metaphor" was just a figment of my imagination. (n.b. that is totally what he says)

What does it say the lyrics are instead? I haven't had time to go through them all yet.

"patois is just a metaphor"

I'm 2 tracks in

this 'Fresh' song is fucking wild

!!

every so often we meld in the astral dimension, rev. see also: erykah badu

Coil s/d c/d etc [Started by Wyndham Earl in February 2002, last updated 4 minutes ago by stirmonster on I Love Music] 8 new answers
Le1f - Dark York (2012): QPOC SHAKUR / #seapunk [Started by twinkin' and drinkin' and ready to fly (Alex in Montreal) in April 2012, last updated 17 minutes ago by HAVE YOU SEEN ME? Please don't hesitate (imago) on I Love Music] 9 new answers

freaky thread connection which is basically confirming my theory that Le1f is Jhonn Balance reborn as a rapper

yeah, two listens-through. amazing music.

:D

Hey EP is streaming at Pitchfork.

http://pitchfork.com/advance/366-hey-ep/

~I'M A CHARMANDER -- A BANJEE COMMANDER~

!!!!!:

i'm playing David Letterman next thursday!!! **bites nails**

Yay!

^^^^^

Letterman Performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_kKjCnaoyc

www.youtube.com/embed/7_kKjCnaoyc

well I tried.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_kKjCnaoyc

nice. song kiiiiiiiiiiiinda sounds like thrift shop tho *ducks*

uh

How on earth was 'suckle on my muscle' allowed on network television?

ha, I was kinda wondering that too

kind of annoyed he's still pimping a two-year old song tho

Well, yeah. But on the other hand, it is amazing, and should be pimped until the whole world has heard it. There's definitely some hits on Hey that he could pimp instead. I like it.

"Wut" has been just about my least favorite song on Dark York since it dropped

also i'm not quite sure he pulls off the second verse live

A few minutes ago:

Le1f ☥ ‏@LE1FNY 9m
thank you so much to @Letterman for inviting me to perform on his stage as a musician and not as a spectacle.

Forgot the end:

that's major.

lol @ 'are those shoes yours or are those rentals?'

yes, that was classic

great performance and this ep is the best thing he's done - had been lukewarm on basically everything post-dark york but this bangs, good to hear him easing up on the trying-to-fit-too-many-words-into-the-line flow as well

dear Lord Jamar,
Choose your battles. If the whitening of rap is a concern to you, please leave my name out of it. If you think being gay is the same as being white, you are as ignorant as your enemies. I'm darker than you. I'm african. I'm a black man and I experience all the same racism you do, if not more, on top of homophobia, including from black men just like you. Are you proud of being a hateful member of a majority? Rap started out as a creative response to oppression, and no matter my outfit, I know oppressions you will never understand.
All respect,
Le1f

boom

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/culture/2014/03/lord-jamar-rap-hip-hop-conservative.html
some background

but yeah, boom

jamar is such an asshole

his twitter feed is so insufferably self-righteous

though tbf

‘Yeezus’ was wack to me,” Jamar said, in reference to Kanye West’s most recent album, a strange and sonically abrasive work that received acclaim and solidified West in the eyes of many as this era’s most important pop star. “You got people who blindly say, ‘That album was so genius.’ And those are the people who will take hip-hop and fucking let it drive right off the fucking cliff—who will listen to ‘Yeezus’ and say, ‘That was so artistic, the way he drove hip-hop off a cliff.’ ”

Except that driving genres off a cliff is a great thing to do. Not taking a sound to it's limits because your afraid it can't handle it, that's weak. And conservative.

yup

Also Yeezus isn't necessarily more abrasive than vintage Bomb Squad & a bunch of other stiff Jamar is probably down with

Wow, if anyone could make Macklemore look sympathetic, it's this clown.

i think "driving hip hop off the cliff" can be interpreted as demolishing the car rather that "taking a sound to its limits"
and my beef with yeezus is not that it's abrasive so much as it is unfun, bloviated and generally uninteresting
i guess really my reasons for disliking kanye and jamar's reasons for disliking kanye are really different
i just don't like kanye is what i'm saying

jamar's objection to the sound seems token in comparison to his weird fixation on "masculinity", which is a) bullshit and b) explains a lot...this idea that hip-hop is inherently a masculine venture. that's where his conservatism seems to stem from - not the beats, it's all about gays and beta males (and white people) (i guess women are not on his radar at all?).

i mean i'm a drake hater but his grounds for criticising drake are also bullshit, this guy is the worst

although as always anything that gets people invested in Traditional Masculinity shook has to have some worth, and when those people are shook it's always fun to see

beta males thing made me lol... is ariel pink the new threat to rap??

https://soundcloud.com/kelelam/oicu/
this is pretty good

New album, Riot Boi out this Friday, Nov. 13. First taste of it is very promising:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0zjfW2qY1U

listening to this now. wooo yeah

the album, i mean

this album is so great, le1f is so great

rly good

Seapunk is still alive. Girl at the coffee shop has a prominent jellyfish tattoo, seapunk dyed hair, and is dressed in athleisure