Elucid’s forthcoming solo album, Save Yourself, is one of the most anticipated indie rap releases of 2015, if you’re asking the Impose office. It all began when we saw Elucid posted up atop a broken down vehicle for the album artwork shot by Alexander Richter. With the announcement of a release date in mid-April, Elucid gifted his followers with a mini-album, produced almost entirely by himself, entitled OSAGE.
“As Light Advances” furthers this jazz age of modern rap through a free form exodus that sends the track colliding into “Remembering Amiri”. It’s a rapturous movement and standing at the catalyst is Elucid with a post-apocalyptic poem to the death of vanguards. He intones a paragraph from the writings of Amiri Baraka with “now that the old world has crashed around me / and it’s raining in early summer / I live in Harlem with a baby shrew / and suffer from my decadence which kept me away so long.” It’s an informed moment that repeats itself across OSAGE, as the mini-album feels like an homage to Elucid’s heritage, both given and assumed. These moments manifest through the words of Black Nationalists and through the source codes of free jazz and proto-punk that propel the record.
Elucid’s Armand Hammer associate billy woods shows up frequently on OSAGE to address racial politics, most notably on “Who No Know Gon Know” with n-word toothpaste, dinosaur brains, and the notion”old habits die hard, old Kobe.” Except for the loop skip of “House Keys” produced by Ohbliv, the entirey of OSAGE‘s production is handled by Elucid. Physical copies of the mini-album will be available soon on Elucid’s Bandcamp.
Elucid’s Save Yourself is out April 15 on Backwoodz.
