In fine dining lingo we would call this a “duo of Underworld Dust Funk records.” Or, “Underworld Dust Funk two ways.” This is not fine dining though, this is chilled, hyperbaric, quasi-occult chamber rap from the forward-thinking UDF collective. God and man collide in scriptural hip-hop verse on Nephilim (officially a solo album by God Roza) and God’s Work (branded a joint UDF EP). Pay homage, fuckers.
The artist formerly known as Caz Greez comes correct with a new album, Life Sucks, featuring the now-trademarked otherworldly rap steez of Underworld Dust Funk. Martis — as he’s now preferring to be called — enlists producers Khrist Koopa, Trowa Barton and Cooli Sledge to assist in the descent.
Underworld Dust Funk’s Paid Roza made a love song. It’s moody and dark as fuck. And you expected something different?
LSD and a hotter-than-average summer in Seattle led Underworld Dust Funk general Bolo Nef to a new moniker (Critical Sun) and this Critical Summer EP. If it’s too deep for you, that’s probably ‘cuz you’re not high.
Caz Greez and Bolo Nef, friends from the Underworld Dust Funk collective, exact a plot to destroy the “Turn Up,” by getting decidedly turnt down in this new track featuring Nacho Picasso. We’re running this in the morning, but it sounds like these cats never went to sleep.
Here then is a brief snippet from Underworld Dust Funk’s latest purveyor of dark rap matter, Paid Roza. The rapper-producer works a bit of numerology into the bleak proceedings as well. From his upcoming NFLM.
“Goosebumps” is the latest from Underworld Dust Funk’s Dizzie Slick. It wins the semi-annual Song That Sounds Like a Nacho Picasso Song But Isn’t Actually a Nacho Picasso Song award. If nihilism was something you could smoke we’d all be repudiates.
“Drug life made me better.” Caz Greez celebrates the harmony and dissension wrought by pills and powder with his Underworld Dust Funk brethren. Watch for a UDF joint album project coming soon.
Listening to Bolo Nef’s new Sol Invictus reminded me of taking one of those long, solo road trips. When the fatigue of navigating an endless stretch of highway in the dark gives way to your brain wandering off to those shadowy, Cimmerian mind states. When you find yourself contemplating the implications of, say, absolute nothingness, and all that stares back at you from the road is the yawning, silent void.
Bolo’s team of creative minions, Underworld Dust Funk (or UDF), specializes in this type of isolationist theory. Theirs is the chant of the alienated and nihilistic; the ethos of the creatures that live and move in the shadows — literally and figuratively — of Seattle’s sunnier hip hop side.
Bolo took me to task on Twitter the other day for reaching snap judgements of his UDF counterpart Caz Greez’s album Misfit. I called that record “cloud trap, promethazine slumber rap”. Fair enough, Bolo. Misfit is definitely more than that. I would contend, however, that Sol Invictus does a superior job of conveying UDF’s prime philosophies. Maybe that’s due to Bolo’s turnt down lyrical style — Caz’s three appearances lend a welcome dose of animation to SI.
Yes, Bolo documents Percocet and pill popping here also, but it scans heavily as self-medication rather than recreational use. Sol Invictus slumbers, half-sober, amid the sounds of a mother’s cries, muted sirens and the waning ping of a heart monitor. While some other ma’fuckas do it to death on world tours, UDF has enough issues just avoiding death around the next corner. It’s probably time to wake up to Bolo’s un-merry crew of illicit prescription revelers. The problem is, sometimes waking up is the scariest part.
A SEATTLE HIP-HOP BLOG 