Jay-Z and Kanye West’s new record Watch The Throne went to number one in twenty-three different countries in its first week of release. Anyone still wondering if hip-hop needs a hearse should get a job at Kinkos. At the top, the best MC’s are all swag and chopped Maybach, bitches in the back seat happy to be nothing more. The American Id has found its ride, and there’s no shortage of pavement. I’ll leave the socio-political critiques for those on better terms with eternity.

On the home front, the coach is a bit more humble, but the road is laid on the same earth. Death, both physical and metaphysical is the enemy of song. We sing to slay these Deaths.

Theoretics’ 

 is a defiance of the opaque forces of Death. (As with any re-appropriation of metaphor, one must be keen to the slipperiness of one word that means it’s opposite depending on the context.)

Okanomodé’s 

 is a direct address of death. It is a murder song. It’s a topical song that takes as its subject Dave and Chantal’s ill-advised “Colonial Africa Wedding”. In the tradition of Nina Simone’s version of Pirate Jenny, Okanomodé imagines slavery’s revenge.

Dr. Oop and Rogue Venom’s 

is a complete immersion in the truth that music is salvation. As Oop spits “music is my medicine”.

As Fela Kuti has informed us, music is the weapon of the future.