 was recording her smash hit 1995 pop album 

, she and her fellow musicians were also secretly putting together a grunge album. 

Carey first mentioned the existence of the secret album in her 

. A version of the record was quietly released at the time under the band name Chick, titled 

, Carey has shared that recordings of the alt-rock album with 

 lead vocals have been found. And she hinted that the elusive project will finally be released. 

"I think this unearthed version will become, yes, something we should hear," she told 

. She suggested, without providing details, that she was even building on the record with an unnamed musician: "I'm working on a version of something where there'll be another artist working on this with me as well." 

Carey described the project — recorded after long days in the studio while working on hits such as "Always Be My Baby" — as an outlet for herself during a period when she felt particularly constrained. 

"I had no freedom during that time. That was my freedom, making that record," she told the podcast.

 she was inspired by bands such as Hole and Green Day at the time. She adopted an alter-ego, as she recalled in her book: "I was playing with the style of the breezy-grunge, punk-light white female singers who were popular at the time. You know the ones who seemed to be so carefree with their feelings and their image." 

At the time, she recalls that there was some unease about her grunge lyrics. "I honestly wanted to put the record out back then under, you know, the same pseudonym, just put it out and be like, you know whatever, let them discover that it's me," she told 

. "But that idea was kind of stomped and squashed."

Carey said she even did the album art — a cockroach and some scrawled lipstick. She remembers driving around, shouting lyrics to songs she wrote that nobody knew.

Ultimately, she said that a friend of hers named Clarissa Dane recorded lead vocals and wrote a grunge song with Carey, and it was released with Carey on backup vocals. That version is no longer widely available.


But it seems like the version that Carey wants us to hear may be coming soon.


{"type":"doc","content":[{"type":"paragraph","content":[{"text":"","type":"text"}]}]}

Merrit Kennedy

Carey has shared that recordings of the alternative album with her lead vocals have been found. And she hinted that the elusive project will finally be released. 


Mark Baker/Sony Music Archive

Mariah Carey says we should finally hear her secret 1995 grunge album

Each week, we add new music, older tracks, which are known as “Gold adds”, and tracks that might not fit our general format, but still deserve a place in rotation because they serve our mission of showing the depth, breadth, and influence of Black musical expression - These are known as “Variety adds.”

We’re sharing this to get you excited to listen and to open up the floor for feedback and suggestions. If you want to request a song, 

. If you make music and want it considered for rotation, 

 If you want to give feedback directly, reach out to me at jgreen@mpr.org.

What a week for adds! Some great Afrobeats, new Kelela AND Blood Orange (!!), and some 

. Not to mention tracks by viral sensation Ice Spice and great gold picks by Sani. Don't forget to tune in from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Thursday to hear her live!

 Spotify playlist. This will be updated weekly with all the new adds and will be a central hub for listeners like you to dip your toe in the pool before diving in.

“Let's Get Married” feat. Run [ReMarqable Remix]

“No Hands” feat. Roscoe Dash and Wale

“Browning in the Jungle (Progressive Sound Remix)”

Julian Green built and manages the music library for Carbon Sound and oversees content creation.  


Julian Green

All of the tracks added to rotation on Carbon Sound the week of September 19, 2022.


Natalia Toledo

New on Carbon Sound

New Music on Carbon Sound - Week of September 19, 2022

CHICAGO — A federal jury on Wednesday convicted 

 of several child pornography and sex abuse charges in his hometown of Chicago, delivering another legal blow to a singer who used to be one of the biggest R&B stars in the world.

Kelly, 55, was found guilty on three counts of child pornography and three counts of child enticement.

But the jury acquitted him on a fourth pornography count as well as a conspiracy to obstruct justice charge accusing him fixing his state child pornography trial in 2008. He was found not guilty on all three counts of conspiring to receive child pornography and for two further enticement charges.

His two co-defendants were found not guilty on all charges.

Jurors wrote several questions to the judge on Wednesday, at least one indicating the panelists were grappling with some of the case's legal complexities.

One asked if they had to find Kelly both enticed and coerced minors, or that he either enticed or coerced them. Over objections from Kelly's lawyer, the judge said they only need to find one.

At trial, prosecutors sought to paint a picture of Kelly as a master manipulator who used his fame and wealth to reel in star-stuck fans, some of them minors, to sexually abuse then discard them.

Kelly, born Robert Sylvester Kelly, was desperate to recover child pornographic videos he made and lugged around in a gym bag, witnesses said. They said he offered up to $1 million to recover missing videos before his 2008 trial, knowing they would land him in legal peril. The conspiracy to hide his abuse ran from 2000 to 2020, prosecutors said.

Kelly associates Derrel McDavid and Milton Brown were co-defendants at the Chicago trial. Jurors acquitted McDavid, a longtime Kelly business manager, who was accused of conspiring with Kelly to rig the 2008 trial. Brown, a Kelly associate for years, was acquitted of receiving child pornography.

Kelly faced 13 counts. A conviction of just one count of child pornography carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years, while receipt of child pornography carries a mandatory minimum of five years. Judges can order that defendants sentenced earlier in separate cases serve their new sentence simultaneously with or only after the first term is fully served. Federal inmates must serve at least 85% of their sentences.

During closing arguments Tuesday, Kelly attorney Jennifer Bonjean likened the government's testimony and evidence to a cockroach and its case to a bowl of soup.

If a cockroach falls into soup, she said, "you don't just pull out the cockroach and eat the rest of the soup. You throw out the whole soup," said told jurors.

"There are just too many cockroaches," she said of the prosecution's case.

The three defendants called only a handful of witnesses over four days. Co-defendant McDavid, who was on the stand for three days, may have damaged Kelly's hopes for acquittal by saying that he now doubts Kelly was truthful when he denied abusing anyone after hearing the superstar's accusers testify.

In her closing rebuttal, prosecutor Jeannice Appenteng cited testimony that Kelly's inner circle increasingly focused on doing what Kelly wanted as his fame boomed in the mid-1990s.

"And ladies and gentlemen, what R. Kelly wanted was to have sex with young girls," she said.

Four Kelly accusers testified, all referred to by pseudonyms or their first names: Jane, Nia, Pauline and Tracy. Some cried when describing the abuse but otherwise spoke calmly and with confidence. A fifth accuser, Brittany, did not testify.

Sitting nearby in a suit and face mask, Kelly often averted his eyes and looked down as his accusers spoke.

Some dozen die-hard Kelly fans regularly attended the trial. On at least one occasion during a break, several made hand signs of a heart at Kelly. He smiled back.

Jane, 37, was the government's star witness and pivotal to the fixing charge, which accused Kelly of using threats and payoffs to get her to lie to a grand jury before his 2008 trial and to ensure she and her parents wouldn't testify.

A single video, which state prosecutors said was Kelly abusing a girl of around 14, was the focal point of that trial.

On the witness stand for two days at the end of August, Jane paused, tugged at a necklace and dabbed her eyes with a tissue when she said publicly for the first time that the girl in the video was her aged 14 and that the man was Kelly, who would have been around 30.

Some jurors in the 2008 trial said they had to acquit Kelly because the girl in the video didn't testify. At the federal trial in Chicago, Jane said she lied to a state grand jury in 2002 when she said it was not her in the video, saying part of her reason for lying was that she cared for Kelly and didn't want to get him into trouble.

Jane told jurors she was 15 when they first had intercourse. Asked how many times they had sex before she turned 18, she answered quietly: "Uncountable times. ... Hundreds."

Jane, who belonged to a teenage singing group, first met Kelly in the late 1990s when she was in junior high school. She had visited Kelly's Chicago recording studio with her aunt, a professional singer. Soon after that meeting, Jane told her parents Kelly was going to be her godfather.

Jane testified that when her parents confronted Kelly in the early 2000s he dropped to his knees and begged them for forgiveness. She said she implored her parents not to take action against Kelly because she loved him.

Defense attorneys suggested a desire for money and fame drove some government witnesses to accuse Kelly, and they accused several people of trying to blackmail him. They also suggested that at least one of his accusers was 17 — the age of consent in Illinois — when Kelly began pursing her for sex.

Bonjean implored jurors not to accept the prosecution's portrayal of her client as "a monster," saying Kelly was forced to rely on others because of intellectual challenges, and that he was sometimes led astray.

"Mr. Kelly can also be a victim," she said in her opening statement.

Prosecutors played jurors excerpts from three videos that Jane said featured her. Court officials set up opaque screens around the jurors so journalists and spectators couldn't see the videos or the jurors' reactions.

But the sound was audible. In one video, the girl is heard repeatedly calling the man "daddy." At one point she asks: "Daddy, do you still love me?" The man gives her sexually explicit instructions.

Prosecutors have said Kelly shot the video that was also evidence in the 2008 trial in a log cabin-themed room at his North Side Chicago home around 1998.

Another accuser, Pauline, said Jane introduced her to Kelly when they were 14-year-old middle school classmates in 1998. At Kelly's Chicago home later that year, Pauline described her shock when she said she first walked in on Kelly and a naked Jane. She said Kelly told her that everyone has secrets. "This is our secret," she testified he said.

Pauline told jurors she still cares for Kelly. But, as a 37-year-old mom, she said she now has a different perspective.


"If somebody did something to my kids," she said, "I'm killing 'em. Period."


The Associated Press

A federal jury convicted R. Kelly of several child pornography charges in his hometown of Chicago, delivering another legal blow to a singer who used to be one of the biggest R&B stars in the world.


Matt Marton/AP

R. Kelly is convicted of child pornography 

"I am grateful and I am proud for this circle of goddesses," said 

 during her joyful, rousing Tiny Desk set, reaching toward the six women surrounding her. Russell has cultivated this band's harmoniousness in the year she's been touring in support of her astounding, unclassifiable album 

, which tells the singer's life story, from her childhood escaping abuse through an itinerant adolescence and young adulthood anchored, finally, by the love and community she's found as a feminist and a music-maker. This group — three string players, two guitarists, a drummer and Russell on her banjo and clarinet — embodies healing community, and its interplay and gospelized group vocals turbo-charged every song.

Russell, who burned a little palo santo wood and placed portraits of Prince and Joni Mitchell nearby as talismans before performing, began her set by invoking the ancestors with "Quasheba." She continued with the incantatory "4th Day Prayer," a spell cast to undo the oppression of childhood trauma. The intense interplay of cellists Larissa Maestro and Monique Ross and violinist Chauntee Ross undergirded the propulsive arrangement. The blues-rooted "Nightflyer" followed; drummer Megan Coleman's green satin angel-wing sleeves shimmered as she marked a beat that guitarists Joy Clark and Mandy Fer intensified. Then came "You're Not Alone," a song Russell originally wrote as part of the Americana supergroup 

. "La musique nous réunit / Une famille," Russell sang in Québécois French. "A 

," she repeated. That's what her music makes.

Ann Powers

Russell and her talented band embody healing community; watch a performance of songs from her astounding, unclassifiable album Outside Child.


NPR Music

Allison Russell: Tiny Desk Concert

Sara Fish

The gifted performer brought to life the magical songs from her debut, ‘Stand for Myself.’


Sara Fish for MPR

Photos: Yola gives electrifying First Avenue performance

Today we celebrate the 1,000th concert the Tiny Desk team has captured and published, and I can't imagine a more inspiring spirit to help us celebrate than 

. Originally from the West African country of Benin, the singer and activist plays a crucial role in spreading the music of Africa and the spirit of love in all that she does.

When I started the Tiny Desk series in April 2008, I never imagined its impact. So many artists' voices have been raised and shared with music fans worldwide through these performances. When Angélique was preparing for her Tiny Desk concert, she thought it would be a good idea to watch some past concerts for inspiration. It's then she saw 

 from Zambia and immediately reached out in hopes of collaborating. Now here they are, at NPR, brought together by a series that has been blessed with so much talent and a global audience with big ears and open arms. 

Angélique Kidjo's band drives the energy and melody as they perform songs from her 2021 album 

 and then dig back a decade to perform the song "Afirika," encouraging strength for the African people. The celebration concludes as Angélique Kidjo pays tribute to her friend and mentor Miriam Makeba by performing her 1967 global hit, "Pata Pata." It was a lovely way to shine a light on how we can impact each other's lives through music.

Bob Boilen

The inspiring Angélique Kidjo graces the Tiny Desk for its 1,000th concert.


Angélique Kidjo: Tiny Desk Concert

Tune in Mon-Thurs from 10a - 1p to hear our host Sanni live on Carbon Sound!

“Submission” feat. Danny Brown & Kelela

“Break Up” feat. Gucci Mane & Sean Garrett

“Somebody That I Used To Know” feat. mcvertt

All of the tracks added to rotation on Carbon Sound the week of September 12, 2022.


New Music on Carbon Sound - Week of September 12, 2022

Sudan Archives' music celebrates digging. With infectious curiosity, her oddball collages of hip-hop, electronic and globally sourced folk bridge worlds and tramp through them, encouraging you to forge your own routes as well. Across two EPs and an album, the self-taught violinist, producer, and songwriter has honed a distinct blend of layered vocals and instrumentation that both pleases the ear and challenges it to parse all the fusion. Her vibrant second album, 

, details her passages between her hometown of Cincinnati, her adopted city of Los Angeles and the many other locales, people, and traditions that inform her idiosyncratic style. The record feels like a world tour of her brain, particular yet capacious — and always active.

Cosmopolitan music often leans heavily into the rush and the signifiers of jetsetting — accents, passports, landmarks, cuisines, runways — but 

's preoccupation is terroir, the distinct conditions that make a place unique. Sudan Archives doesn't just experience or consume global sounds; she interacts with them, her fingers sifting through the soil as she feels out every little element. "Suck out the honey," she implores on the steamy R&B track "Milk Me," capturing the intimacy and pleasure of her sourcing. Each encounter seems to clarify her own origins and path forward.

The album builds on the conviction of her debut, Athena, which bolstered her signature sound with heftier singing and breezy rapping. The cover of that globetrotting record, which pictured Sudan Archives and her violin as a Greek statue, captures the whimsy, audacity and confidence of her musical vision. Born Brittney Parks and nicknamed Sudan as a child, the artist is a Black Midwesterner with no direct ties to Sudan, South Sudan, or Greece. She picked up the violin when a chance performance by Canadian fiddlers at her Ohio elementary school sparked an obsession. She learned to play by ear in various ensembles — something she references on the Natural Brown Prom Queen interlude "Do Your Thing (Refreshing Springs)" — and later became interested in the actual sounds of Sudan, which coincidentally has a culture of ceremonial and experimental violin music. She adopted her stage name after this tacit connection implored her to peruse the broader archive of African folk music. More links followed — many of them hyperlinks on YouTube — as she explored and embraced the string traditions of Estonia, Ghana, and Russia. All this cultural gallivanting rules out any notion of "authenticity," a fraught term that, in the name of properly attributing sounds and styles to their sources, often conflates origination with originality and inspiration with extraction.

 has little interest in proving Parks' legitimacy and is more driven by her intense curiosity. The acts of borrowing and interpolating are openly embedded in the music. On the closer, "513," she warps the hook of LL Cool J's "Going Back to Cali" into a homegoing reprise. Opener "Home Maker" is an ode to personal space that begins with a quicksilver suite that flickers between snatches of synth, trumpet, keys, harp, and a breakbeat before settling into a pulsing R&B arrangement. "I'm a homemaker," Sudan Archives sings on the hook, celebrating her domicile and the many elements that comprise it. Her home is a waypoint rather than an enclosure, the space and its builder changing as people and ideas drift through.

That enthusiasm for both influence and confluence flavors the swaggering and saucy album, which finds the singer mulling relationships, her body and her desires over compositions that shimmer with textures and overtones. The songs, which often have multiple producers, practically glow with life, constantly changing direction and shape. "Ciara" wryly uses sun-soaked melodies to toast to a roughneck relative ("I got a cousin in Chicago / Who will smack you in your face") then empties into a sludgy bridge that shifts yet again into a gale of chill funk. The dewy vocals and production on slow jam "ChevyS10" liquefy, sublimate and freeze like water changing states. Noise rap and hyperpop often use volatility to disorient and dissociate, but as Sudan jaunts from Miami bass on "Freakalizer" to Irish jigs on "TDLY (Homegrown Land)" she sounds more grounded and clear-headed.

"Selfish Soul" melds choral harmonies, violin riffs and pounding drums into a folksy rap track, the busyness of the beat matching Sudan's fraught tales of styling her hair. The theme recalls other considerations of Black hair by women in soul music — India.Arie's "I Am Not My Hair" and Solange's "Don't Touch My Hair" — but Sudan's take on the subject emphasizes working for self-acceptance rather than deflecting outside gazes, subtly underscoring that individual autonomy is at the root of such songs even as they mention experiences relatable to any Black woman. "Copycat" approaches the subject differently, Sudan playfully addressing biters. Calling out plagiarists is standard rap stuff, but the song doubles as a metacommentary on the unappreciated omni-influence of Black women, Sudan asking how she can be both despised and Xeroxed. It's a worthwhile question. In a world with so much erasure of Black women's contributions, what can authenticity even look like for them?

. On the title track, she alludes to her time in N2, a defunct teen-pop duo with her twin sister. She's said that rebelling against the direction of the group, which was put together by her late stepdad, resulted in her getting kicked out the house. Because of this history, the polyvalent music she makes as Sudan Archives is often read as antipop. But here she makes it clear that she rejected her lack of authority rather than the music she made. "I just want to have my t*****s out / T*****s out / T*****s out," she chants in the outro, again linking creative and bodily autonomy. Her music is less a rejection of pop and more an embrace of her uninhibited self. (Plus, her pop instincts are on full display in the composition of these and past songs. She is very capable of writing earworms and being an ethnomusicological nerd at the same damn time.)

When she's not explicitly talking about authority, she's exuding it in her cocksure rapping and singing, which anchors all the album's motion. She gushes with ideas and approaches to these bustling arrangements, hopscotching across drum patterns ("Yellow Brick Road"), bouncing off of basslines ("Copycat") and gliding over melodies ("Homesick"). Her violin appears on over half the songs, but it's less of a focal instrument, underscoring the growing sense that she is the lead. Her widening web of influences and collaborators (most notably multi-instrumentalist Ben Dickey, who is credited on nearly every song) affirms that she is the conductor through which all these currents flow.


It's fitting, then, that her journeys lead her back to Cincinnati on "#513." "Hollywood will make you hollow / I'm too rooted in my ways," she sings defiantly, setting the song up as a prodigal return. But the tinny song is not an ode to the rustbelt city or a homecoming in the typical sense of the word. Sudan Archives doesn't head home to settle old scores, reminisce on better days, or restore herself. She goes simply because, in that moment, that's where she wants to be. That caprice captures the itinerant spirit of her music and the album's arch sense of home. In the world of Sudan Archives, home is anywhere, anyone, and any sound that pushes you forward.


Stephen Kearse

The self-taught violinist, producer, and songwriter doesn't just experience or consume global sounds; she interacts with them. Natural Brown Prom Queen feels like a world tour of her brain.


Edwig Henson

Sudan Archives - Milk Me (Official Audio)

Sudan Archives - OMG BRITT (Official Video)

Sudan Archives' vibrant music of exploration

 does is intricately detailed. He seems to care much more than the average emcee, and throughout this entire production, I felt his strong desire to get it right. The weight was lifted from his shoulders at the midway point of the set as he turned to his band, saying, "We're pretty hot guys. We're pretty fucking hot." In this performance, recorded weeks before the release of his now widely praised third studio album, 

the East Atlanta native performs songs from the album live for the first time, plus career-defining songs in ways we've never heard before. 

The origin of JID makes up the puzzle pieces in 

. It's the story of a kid with derailed football dreams, searching for purpose until it found him. These are tales that many kids from the inner city can relate to — but what sets JID's story apart is that nobody raps like him. His music casts a wide net, considering history, family and hometown, and connecting with hip-hop enthusiasts and music nerds alike. 

In these stripped-down versions of songs like "Never" and "Surround Sound," the focus is on how JID can manipulate pitch, bend words and hop from one cadence to another. After he playfully cuts the "Usher tension," he and his stacked band and backup singers close with the powerful and spiritual "Kody Blu 31."

Bobby Carter

The East Atlanta emcee brings a serious attention to detail to this stripped-down performance of tracks from his new album plus some earlier career-defining songs. 


Courtesy of NPR

JID: Tiny Desk Concert

 likely won't trouble the upper reaches of the 

 Hot 100 — but that's not its reason for existing. Instead, the album by revered Los Angeles producer Alchemist and Long Island crime rhyme auteur Roc Marciano is a nourishing reminder that artists who stay authentic to their core values can make the long game work and ride out sub-genre impact and regional movements. Eventually, like-minded souls meet. In the case of Alchemist and Marciano, it has been an epic, intersecting journey across eras, and, rewardingly, the culmination of their respective efforts is the record they've both been inching towards their entire careers.

 is a testament to a couple of hip-hop long haulers who've never wavered from their creative ethics, even if at times those ethics seemed out of sync with hip-hop's prevailing ethos. Both artists experienced early career misfires. Alchemist debuted in the 1990s as one half of the group the Whooliganz alongside the actor Scott Caan. (Going by the name Mudfoot, he also rapped.) Despite counting on the patronage of Cypress Hill, the group's singles fizzled out, and they were dropped by their label, Tommy Boy. For his part, Marciano was invited to join Busta Rhymes's Flipmode Squad towards the tail end of the same decade. The chemistry didn't totally gel. Undeterred, Marciano reformed as part of the hyper rugged quartet the UN. The group's debut album, 

, was recorded and released in 2004 under the guidance of renowned New York producer Pete Rock, but from its inception the project seemed destined to be an under-appreciated thug-rap gem rather than a breakthrough moment.

At these respective career junctures, both Alchemist and Marciano found the inner conviction to throw off their negative industry experiences and recommit to their core beliefs. Holed up on opposite coasts, they became parallel figures gradually moving towards what would eventually emerge as an influential shared sonic goal.

Alchemist put faith in mastering the art of mercurial mid-tempo beats that emphasize the dramatic flair of a sampled loop and use deft minimalism to convey high drama. An Alchemist beat is exactly the sort of thing to soundtrack a rain-flecked back-alley scene in a noir gangster flick. Yet, crucially, Alchemist managed to co-exist in multiple rap worlds, during a period in the late '90s and early '00s when hip-hop was in the midst of a civil war. Fevered debates kicked off about the true essence of hip-hop and the relationship between art and commerce. A generation of book-smart independent artists fronted by Talib Kweli and Mos Def were pitched against a gaggle of glitzy rappers corralled by Sean "Puffy" Combs; in the alley, a coterie of unrepentant goon rappers stood out of sight scowling at the whole shebang. Alchemist wound up soundtracking each space. You'd just as likely hear him backing L.A. underground scene favorites Dilated Peoples or stalwarts of the indie label Rhymesayers as bolstering the cutthroat Queensbridge narratives of Mobb Deep and Infamous Mobb. As the 2000s unfurled, Alchemist's production was increasingly sought after by Top 40 mainstays, including Nelly, Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne. Everyone, it seemed, loved an Alchemist beat.

While Alchemist was establishing a web of connections across various levels of the industry, Marciano was readying his self-produced 2010 album, 

 The album reinvigorated a wave of New York rappers struggling with identity issues, and, it can be argued, transformed him into the most influential New York underground artist of the last decade. At the time, the hip-hop scene was defined by the splintering influence of rap A-listers: Drake's melodious, R&B-tinged 

, and Kanye West's expansive electronic-influenced 

. New York rappers committed to the tenets of a boom-bap gospel appeared out of step with the wider world. Marciano, apparently, didn't care. He shrugged and dropped an unapologetic record that resonated as an elevated take on a local standard. Set to an evocatively gloomy backdrop, Marciano laced grit-sodden thug rap talk with the unruffled patter of '70s pimp flicks. His penchant for forming verses around tense vignettes, rather than drawn-out, prescribed narratives, imbued the album with a palpable — and at times frightening — realism. The MC's vow to dump enemy bodies in the Hudson River on "Ridin' Around" is appropriately chilling. 

Marciano's lyrical menace was enhanced by the quiet storm method of keeping the drums deliberately hushed in the mix — or, in some cases, absent from a song entirely. The formula didn't catch on immediately, but it eventually inspired a stream of artists who realized that muted sonics could amplify the power of their words. It's certainly hard to imagine the breakthrough success of the Griselda stable of rappers happening without Marciano paving the way. Call it maxed-out minimalism.

project, Marciano encapsulated his influence with hindsight: "The aim was the lane of Rakim and Kane / The landscape changed when I went against the grain / N****s wasn't quick to embrace, no / I could've did the same but I didn't hate / I just did my thing and prayed, eventually sh** went my way." More recently, he put it bluntly, on "Stigmata" from 

: "I've been inspiring these donkeys for a mother****in' decade straight." Adding credence to the MC's claims, ?uestlove once 

 at the Alchemist, in 2012, that he'd enjoyed his "best hip-hop debate" with Jay Z about the merits of 

As the 2010s progressed, Alchemist and Marciano started to notch a small but key number of collaborations. They were kindred spirits, relying on the power of restraint to convey an abiding sense of peril. The Alchemist-produced "Flash Gordon," from Marciano's 2012 

 album, is a marvel of clipped drums and a haunting piano refrain; "Hoard 90," from Alchemist and Oh No's 

 project on Stones Throw, co-starred Marciano flowing over a wormy guitar loop and coming off like a psychedelic-enhanced thug rap lord.

The two artists' creative foils increasingly overlapped too. The caliber of MCs that followed in Marciano's stylistic footsteps were a natural fit for Alchemist's beats — the producer crafted full-length outings for a roster of artists headed up by gourmand rap personality Action Bronson (2012's 

: James taut corner dispatches fortify the eerily humming "Trillion Cut," while Bronson embraces the scuzz funk of "Daddy Kane" by quipping how "ya boy looking like a mother****in' stegosaurus." Nodding to the pimp-culture heritage of Marciano's verses, Ice-T narrates the grisly organ-infused "The Horns Of Abraxas." (Spoiler: The rotting smell coming from the trunk of Marciano's car is not expired food.)

gives the impression of two artists from different geographical backgrounds journeying at their own pace to meet a mutual musical summit. Marciano's lyrical threats are delivered in typically unruffled fashion and laced with insouciance. "My dude on the roof, he ain't bring a fiddle / The feds might have bugged the rental / We speak in riddles / Left your vehicle riddled / Your femur break easy as peanut brittle," raps the MC over the simmering atmospherics of "Zip Guns," before delivering a dose of trademark arrogance: "Blow a kiss at your miss at the vigil / I'm a cruel individual." Alchemist's refined beats are a lesson in drumming up emotion through moderation. Opener "Rubber Hand Grip" is powered by a series of kick drums that play the role of an ominous metronome signaling impending danger; reflective album closer "Think Big" sounds surprisingly tender, considering Marciano's tributes to the Notorious B.I.G. are backed by a loop of a colony of seagulls mewing. The production is expertly distilled, sometimes delightfully wonky, and often mutedly weird; even more left-of-center than the Alchemist-produced Armand Hammer album, 

. No sound is needlessly overused. Each artist leans into the other's strength. By now, Roc Marciano understands that subtlety can speak volumes, and the Alchemist knows you don't always need to strike hard to land a deadly blow.  

Phillip Mlynar

Holed up on opposite coasts, Roc Marciano and the Alchemist, two key figures in underground rap, have been gradually moving toward a shared sonic goal, reaching an apex with their new album.


Stories

Mariah Carey says we should finally hear her secret 1995 grunge album

New Music on Carbon Sound - Week of September 19, 2022

R. Kelly is convicted of child pornography

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Allison Russell: Tiny Desk Concert

Photos: Yola gives electrifying First Avenue performance

Angélique Kidjo: Tiny Desk Concert

New Music on Carbon Sound - Week of September 12, 2022

Connect with Carbon Sound

Sudan Archives' vibrant music of exploration

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