Alt Nerd Rap Dispatch

"I went to school to become a philosopher 

but dropped out to be a sober Kid Cudi imposter."

Milo is a rapper, notorious by his nerdity, and nearly absurd by the fact he has rapped about the time he (might have, allegedly) cried on an internet message board due to real world awkwardness. He exists somewhere in the altstream of rap, in the neighbourhood of Open Mike Eagle, Billy Woods, and Busdriver (there's a strange proximity to Kool A.D. with less psychedelia).

Milo's verses are accomplishments in multisyllabic delivery, and if his vocabulary isn't as large as Aesop Rock's, he's closing the gap at an alarming rate. He may well represent the pinnacle of that most critical subgenre, Nerd Rap. He might also represent alt rap's great hope – a sublime counterpoint to everything that ever buried intelligence in favor of style.

Not to say that Milo is the answer, that an answer is needed, or that mainstream rap are necessarily unwoke. Milo is a rap moniker or nom de rap for Rory Ferriera, born in Chicago, raised in Maine, and lately an L.A. [un]based vegetarian, touring at the time of this writing. Seems to like Vonnegut, definitely read his philosophical tracts at some point, and pointedly represents the defiant vanguard of rap. Nerd territory stuff.

The 'Das Racist' Connection

At first I was pretty resistant to the idea of new rap. Isn't the golden era over? Okay I'm being facetious. Being aware of the continuum of things is necessary to any complete reading of the thing in its present sense, though. So I'm not against the idea of new rap. Wu Tang and Jurassic 5 are pretty much legendary, but also over, and everybody knows the Tribe broke up because they simply could not handle Fred Durst's insane delivery and flow. 1999 was a mean time.

Speaking of insane shit, there's a group going by the name of Das Racist. Their first two releases are widely available and open to interpretation and debate. I highly recommend at least 18 of the tracks you can get immediately and with little hassle. Obviously their name is rap nominative taken to the next level, so you owe it to yourself to be educated about this matter.

DR are all about a sort of absurdist neo-hip hop. Some of their rhymes are weak and papery like soggy cardboard, but often they make up for this with great imitative production and delivery, as if they're... Wait

The lyrics range from A+ to 'meh', but the A+ moments are worth it and surprisingly consistent. Allusions fly around to everything, a kind of postmodern reference machine set to nice beats with a persistently and agonizingly self-aware (one might even say 'pseudo-hipsterian') angle. If you have lived at all in the past couple of decades there are name-drops waiting for you. Some are even humorous, which is great. The track 'Nutmeg', from their first release, starts out as of the best Ghostface homages I've ever heard.

Othertimes they're kicking it about corporations, the racism inherent in society; celebrities, weed, other drugs, themselves, parties, even franchise restaurants. I may just be ignorant but I have caught no G. Bush references, so, while there is the temptation to call them pure joke rappers, they at least are not taking the path of least resistance. Of course Obama is name-dropped.

On the other hand, they are an elaboration of something about their time. From the hyper-allusive, brand aware, irony-deficient lyrics, to the casual genre-hopping, Das Racist evoke the image of a multicultural goof troop on the coolest street corner in town, jocosely fooling around with a band of elite-level-hipness groupies and some production equipment they stole from MF Doom and LCD Soundsystem.

But there really is ultimately something fresh about DR's lyrics, that cannot be explained without audio reference. I could try posting lyrics, but seriously, now: I already posted a pretty swell hyperlink reference.