Abstract hip-hop rising from the dog-breath torpor of Los Angeles, A7PHA is dense, heavy, and experimental in the vein of Subtle and Why?, but with an appetite for the abhorrent that places an incredible emphasis on the bleaker, post-punker and headstrong side of backpack rap.
A7PHA is a collaboration between Anticon co-founder Doseone (Subtle, Themselves) and underground rapper Mestizo. The tone of their self-titled LP is that of waiting for the sun to rise at midnight on Easter Sunday- an anticipation of rebirth through fire that will reincarnate you in your most elemental form: a carbon-charcoal shadow cast on the concrete facade of a crumbling skyscraper.
This album, their debut, was released in 2019 on Doseone’s own label, and produced by Alias (member of Sole and Anticon co-founder), and feels like a headstone for the era of indie rap ostentatiously planted at the point in the crossroads where trap penned its damnable deal with the devil.
The album is both clean-shaven and incredibly ugly; strangely-illuminating and blindingly dark; Memphis-fried after being skinned alive; a phantasmal, saber-toothed regression into a future that is already behind us; a blood dyed yellow-eyed freak.
The album gives both MCs equal stage time, allowing Doseone’s spastic, extra-terrestrial flow to interact and contrast with Mestizo’s deep-voiced, cryptic, and meditative poetry to produce something that is unnerving, and exciting, but also very unnerving.
A pretty good place to start is the rapid fire release of "Hater Hate It" which shows off just how slipper and unrestrainable Doseone's flow can be, something he delivers over some temperature regulating euro-beats. It's probably the track with the most commercial potential, and if you can survive it, then you read to roll headfirst into the rest of it.
Such as the brash and determined flow set to synth-driven 80’s slasher theme on “No Breaks," the foggy, ambient rattle and snapped ankle beats that stage set a prayer for inner peace on “Closer," the drippy dirges, burst flow fractures of the pessimistically socially conscious “99 Point Static," and the mechanical, trickling beats, rolling flow, and darkly, campy poetics of “Hand 2 Hand." Those are my recommendations at least- but really, any where is a good place to start with this heterodox volume of ghastly, grey and otherworldly transmissions.
