Here is something that I've been really feeling. NCL-DøøFus 2 : Swamp Phonk is a collaboration between producer NCL-TM and rapper Døøf and it is cool as hell. It's a smooth southern-styled boil where the main ingredients are moody jazz, '70s exploitation soundtracks, rough-cut audio clips, and generous servings of sumptuous exposition set to rhyme. And, yes, despite the name, this is not a phonk album. But it has the kind of real-world, dirty-as-fuck feel as a phonk album, which I think justifies its claim to the term. NCL-TM is not shy about showing his work, and you can easily decern the care with which each loop and annotating audio snippet was twizzlered together to make a wide and wiggle net on which Døøf turns a series of performative rolls and powerbombs. Døøf's style of mumbly, growly lyricism is so organic it's almost like it's sprouting right out of the beats like they were nitrogen-enriched soil and he was a black rose in full bloom, reaching towards the clouds in order to spread his pedals and cuss out and drag pedestrians. Swamp Phonk is comprised of many classic hip-hop elements, but it doesn't feel tired or derivative- if anything, it feels almost too fresh for something so steeped in the gnarly noir of Rudy Ray Moore, and films like Three the Hard Way and Cleopatra Jones. But these young dudes are able to regulate their process well and balance their goofier instincts with firm fundamentals. I love to see old sounds freshened up in a way that doesn't draw too much attention to the age of the source material- a maneuver that this duo land through a combination of artistic clarity and foregrounded personality. It might be called Swamp Phonk, but that doesn't mean that it will bog you down. Despite the grit and the slime, it's a slick and tidy sprint from start to finish.
