With «Darkskies», early in 2020 the London rapper Lord Apex released an album that will be known not only for its presence on some best of the year hip-hop lists. The tracks are grim and simple, as if they were from RZA, but sounding even darker and colder, so somehow more British and modern. The beats vibrate more than they stomp, driving the sampled melancholy circling above them with determination. The rhymes chase the sound in a relaxed manner, so that virtuoso, even outrageous phrasing and changes in tempo don’t remove the songs from their meditative calm.
Text: Frederic Auderset