Ever since his and producer Exile's Below The Heavens made him a boom bap nerd's darling way back in 2007, Los Angeles rapper Blu has eschewed any and every expectation placed on his head. Instead he turned quiet, mostly dropping weirdly introverted and lo-fi side projects in the form of poorly tagged and Zshared zips. His much anticipated NoYork LP was presumed by some to be his major label solo debut as well as the "proper" followup to the one record anybody ever talks about in his catalog. Well NoYork! isn't any of those things. Yesterday it dropped, not in stores, but as an inconspicuous collection of YouTube links that Blu tweeted last night and on first listen it's, well, as weird as anything Blu has done since. But intriguingly so. As with C.R.A.C. Knuckles, his very underrated collab with Ta'Raach, Blu seems to be having a ton of fun in the studio here, bouncing around spastically atop super futuristic production experiments. It's not Below The Heavens 2 (thankfully) but it is feeling like the rapper's first cohesive statement in a long while. Featuring guest shots from Sa-Ra, Edan, Pac Div, U-God and more.
Stream: Blu's NoYork LP
