When E L U C I D picked up Nine Inch Nails’ “March Of The Pigs” and Miles Davis’ “Rated X” on his radio, REVELATOR was born. Best known as part of the duo Armand Hammer, the rapper and producer unleashed noisy visions of the world around him on his latest solo album, released in 2024, combining his sharp observational pen with a relentless search for dynamics between industrial, noise, free jazz, post-punk, and rap.
In “VOICE 2 SKULL,” the third-to-last track on the album, Chaz Hall accurately sums up the modus operandi that governs his artistry (and which extends from the mixtapes Smash & Grab – 2007 – and POLICE & THIEVES – 2008 – to the present day): “I get up before everyone and lose my mind first/ for even just an hour/ I work in sound and feeling/ sometimes fury/ asking the whys and hows.” It is, for example, the same inner fire that leads him to address the moral disagreement with the Zionist landlord in “SLUM OF A DISREGARD,” a song that could serve as the main idea for a script for an episode that crosses Atlanta and Black Mirror.
An excellent team player (in addition to AH with Billy Woods, he made his mark in groups such as Cult Favorite, Nostrum Grocers, and Small Bills), the New York artist has created a prolific and diverse catalog in his own name over the past two decades with LPs such as Save Yourself (2016) and I Told Bessie (2022) – in the latter, we hear him more introspective and spiritual than usual – in more traditional formats, but also in experiments less concerned with rules in SEERSHIP! (2020) and INTERFERENCE PATTERN (2024). More than just a top-notch MC, he is a proven sonic explorer through samplers, synthesizers, and words.
“I don’t have the privilege to think everything ain’t political,” he proclaims in “1010 Wins,” a track from the project Shit Don’t Rhyme No More (2020). A preacher in an alternative reality, E L U C I D does not deceive: his mission is to remind us of our humanity when everything around us tries to dehumanize us (even if that involves violent slaps of reality and high doses of frustration in every verse).
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