Grape God
Calls home: Portland, OR
Latest release: A.G.E.
I’ll be the first person to admit that Northwestern rapper Grape God‘s music isn’t for everyone. He flows in and out of the pocket, often sounding like a spoken-word artist lost in a sea of lush hip-hop production. But there’s more to his lyrics than clever turns of phrase and a seemingly innate bravado that’s neither forced nor bothersome. Still, some of y’all have been turned off by what readers have pointed out is a style too close to that of Kool A.D. To that, I say, “So what?”
Like the former Das Racist member and even Del The Funky Homosapien, Grape God has a lax, laid-back tone that’s clearly influenced by his fondness for certain beverages, time traveling, and, of course, marijuana. He also has an affinity for wordplay and lush, wide-open instrumentals, which makes the verbose, off-kilter rhymes easier to digest and mull over.
You can listen to his debut full-length, A.G.E., below. If you decide to purchase it, there’s an option to snag a CD along with a limited-edition Grape God bar of soap. Yeah.—Andrew Martin
the world desperately needs to know more about Mick Jenkins and Martin $ky, both are artists from Chicago. Mick’s “Trees & Truths project is the best hip hop release so far in 2013 (IMO, of course) and Martin should be releaseing TIMEless sometime soon but has a wealth of other material that is currently available.