Click album cover to purchase at Bandcamp.

Town rap veteran Khingz is equal parts self-reverential and self-referential on his latest LP, Liberation of the Monster, a release backed by Vancouver, BC record label Wandering Worx Entertainment (home to rappers Moka Only and Planet Asia, among others). The entire project was produced by Rel!g!on, who favors decidedly West Coast-derived slap matched with chopped samples and liberal doses of aggressive keyboard — imagine a more forward-thinking version of the early Dogg Pound aesthetic.

Indeed Khingz makes immediate connections to his West and East Coast roots (the MC has spent considerable time on both geographic margins) on album opener, and Dogg Pound-referencing, “DPG in NYC.” On the track he threatens to “stomp through the city like Dogg Pound in N-Y,” certainly a lyrical salvo meant to highlight his considerable skills as an MC. That’s the self-reverential part.

On Liberation, we also see Khingz highlighting his own personal struggles, those derived from racial injustice, identity crises, and conflicts when his power as a man intersects with mutual gender reciprocity. It’s all heavy stuff, especially “For Colored Boys Who Consider Suicide,” a figuratively titled song that can’t be anything but autobiographical.

For those that follow Khingz, they know that he’s equal parts sci-fi nerd and reformed gang banger, at-odds identities for those that like to stereotype, but commonly-occurring mutual states of existence for heads that actually observe. The MC’s self-referencing habits (like those found on his excellent 2009 LP, From Slaveships to Spaceships) feel like rap therapy sessions for Khingz, and edifying moral support for listeners who find themselves in the same beautiful category as him.