The Legend of ABM
Album by Angry Blackmen
Released 26 January 2024
Industrial Hip Hop
Label – Deathbomb Arc
Rating – 8/10
Inimitable anger.
–
Given the vivid contempt of Angry Blackmen’s second album, one might assume the label “hostile city” has left Philadelphia and blown over to the windy city. The Chicago rap duo – Brian Warren and Quentin Branch – met back in 2014 and have since developed a chemistry spawned from inner vitriol and a distinct sound.
The Legend of ABM unites the worlds of Clipping and Run the Jewels (a.k.a. angry black man and angry white man) to rechristen noisy industrial hip hop and political hostility. There is blood in their approach; meltdown after meltdown, killer flow after killer flow, middle finger after middle finger.
Despite the makeup of their music, these are two dudes with no airs and nothing to hide – no over-the-top rap aliases, no punches pulled. Quentin’s anger is undisguised on Dead Men Tell No Lies, no matter what freaky vocal presets are later harboured. A burning in his throat provides a tangible honesty, all in a verse that begins with the rhyme “death is all around me, smell the scent in my nostrils / grim reaper glaring in my eyes looking hostile” and ends with “population misinformed, media consumption / government corruption, I ain’t with the fuck shit”. In that racket, he covers all necessary ground.
I’m not here to condition anyone, but I love music where you can feel what the artist is feeling, and so should you. I used the word “artist” rather than “performer”, as despite their priceless flows, Quentin and Brian attack with realism, a realism clocked with confidence on FNA; Brian snaps through a number of different vocal guises and each seems to suit each subject, particularly the bold way that he states “if you hate the black man, the one question is why / I sit back and watch the bros sell drugs to get by” before Quentin sternly mirrors his themes, dissecting racism in America.
This is inimitable anger; crazily persuasive shit. You know it’s real when the rapper isn’t in it simply to focus on anger; that’s just incidental, saying what needs to be said as a response to injustice. Brian even stops to admit “life is amazing” on the title track, otherwise surrounded by oeuvres of hardship, summed up on GRIND by its “life isn’t amazing” hook, a funky earworm of “working 9 to 5 on the grind just to say alive / money on my mind when I rhyme just to get a dime”. There’s something beautifully UGK about it.
While the frenzied hook of FUCK OFF contributes to Angry Blackmen’s wrath – as does its opening line “motherfuck the cops, they just wanna see us dead / nine millimetre shoot a pig in the head” – the track’s vitriol is summoned by its loud-loud-oh-god-it’s-loud glitches; a unique backing rivalled by the bleeping, blooping, chrome-coated future timeline of SpongeBob heard on Sabotage, the optimistic future of Magnum Opus, and the sheer volcanic beat of Stanley Kubrick, bounced off of by the constancy of the duo’s raps.
Outsiders is just distortion and feedback, a means to claim necessary attention like a busted megaphone that emits profane vocabulary. The minimalised industrialism of Suicidal Tendencies combines with a hit drum that nods its head to back Quentin up.
The world is fucked up, and the high-pressure soundscapes of The Legend of ABM capture that fucked-up-ery, alongside the unamused responses to it, with creative excellence and pure passion. I have the feeling Angry Blackmen will outdo the album in the future, but their second album is the perfect announcement of who Brian Warren and Quentin Branch really are, and the fight they devotedly bring.
Best tracks – GRIND – Dead Men Tell No Lies.
Rating – 8 out of 10
PEANUTBUTTERPOPE 