Jamo Gang is ready to claim the pride land back from those chuckle-headed hyenas and pretty boy, sad-sack, alligator-tear dropping Soundcloud snakes on their latest release
Walking with Lions. In case you didn't know, Jamo Gang is comprised of three upstart hip hop artists, MCs Ras Kass from LA and El Grant from NYC, backed by the bubble-bass and cush-beats of producer J57. Legend has it that these rare-breed rebels were introduced by DJ Premier, and if that's true, it's hard not to see the potential he saw in these dudes when their powers unite. As a Chicago boy (the good kind, the kind whose never even set foot on the University of Chicago's campus) I'd be remiss not to recommend "Belushi & Aykroyd," and as luck would have it, It's also the first track, kicking things off with bluesy, El-P-esque crusher grooves, with thick, smack-talking bars about the crew's distaste for schmoozing music-industry bullshit and the easy by which they skin snaking bastards as soon as they show their fangs. Next up is "Francis Scott Key," which features mean beats and airy angry samples with lyrics that enumerate America's long list of sins against black America. The title track "Walking with Lions" grabs hold of the clock and spins the hands back to when southern rap seeped through the mortar and margins of every city in America in a blasting beat-down of gospel boom-bap with beautiful sections of clean singing. "38 Minutes" punches above its weight thematically, a spine-tingling avant-garde slab of hardcore rap featuring Sick Jacken of Slipknot and describing various reactions the crew go through in the last two-quarters of an hour they have on Earth while they wait for an atomic bomb to reduce them to irradiated, charcoal silhouettes. For my money though, "The 1st Time" is the highlight of the album, is ready for a block party in a world not stricken with COVID-19, a track begging to be let loose, where a confident, strutting, back-pack rap beat meets a golden jazz-rap, mash-up featuring DJ Premier and Atmosphere's Slug. Learn to walk the line with these young cats, because if you step to them instead, you're bound to feel the cut of their claws.
Grab a copy of
Walking with Lions from Fat Beats
here.
