It was a pleasant surprise to learn Ohio rapper Envelope is still making records, since we hadn't heard from him beyond his 2008 debut Shark Bolt on fellow Columbus rapper Blueprint's Weightless Recordings imprint. How a rapper ages as opposed to the average person is considerably slower and in that four year break Envelope is still the same rapper who can find the humor in a Biggie line about undying love and the paranoia of apocalyptic threats.
On "We're All Gonna Die Together" featuring Catalyst, a synth-beat provides the accents in tension as the rappers crowd the booth for a chorus that's equal parts Boot Camp Clique "rolling deep in the studio" and Irish drinking song sung in a packed pub.
The song is silly enough on its own, and possibly not all that repeat worthy for that matter, but the stop-animation video helps matters as it manifests every universal fear and sci-fi disaster, from aliens attacking Egyptians and spacemen finding life on Mars to killer giant squid and eight-legged freaks.
Envelope and Jacoti Sommes' This Could Go Either Way is available for purchase here.
