Before the dissolution of Definitive Jux, Alaska was a member of the label’s self-professed, but never recognized by Soundscan multi-platinum rap trio Hangar 18 alongside Windnbreeze and DJ paWL. Since the parting of ways for the label and the group’s announced break up in 2009, Alaska has purveyed in the Bandcamp era with projects like The Crack Epidemic with producer Kojo and now Words Hurt with producer Lang Vo.
Much like his work in the Crack Epidemic explored the long path of life, Words Hurt is a platform for Alaska the unapologetic misanthrope who has no time for party and bullshit. Fuck That Pretty Boy Shit is no frills, curmudgeon rap over brooding, dystopian production. If the Crack Epidemic explored the past to inform a modern awakening, Words Hurt looks around a dying empire and spits on the ground in defiance. “We Are Fucked” builds its energy off a soliloquy on capitalism con artists from Mr. Robot, while “Alwayswillwhatbe” concedes to his adult rapper life of fluctuating weight, domestication, and fatherhood. The new keeping it real.
“The Kids Are Alright” is Fuck That Pretty Boy Shit‘s crowning moment. “Could we please get up off our own dicks / the kids are alright / let them go and have their own shit” is Alaska’s advice over sparse percussion and a distorted Barrington Levy-esque wail. On it Alaska is both a guardian to his offspring and a guardian at the gate of rap music. In each scenario, he wrestles with conceding to the younger generation to recognize “the kids are alright / but the grown-ups are fucked.”
Words Hurt’s Fuck That Pretty Boy Shit is out now on Bandcamp.
