17 Mar 2017

Milez Grimez & Raw: "Pearly Gates"


Street knowledge from the afterlife
Milez Grimez hails from Rhode Island, New England and comes from a family of musicians and artists, so music was in his blood from an early age. Milez Grimez started out his career in the hip hop game back in 2000 when he attended an open mic session at a Talib Kweli show. The positive crowd reaction he got made him eager to pursue a career in hip hop. Since then he’s been featured on a wide range of tracks by prominent rappers like Apathy, Kool G Rap & Crooked I. First time i got aware of his rhyme skills was in 2015 alongside Ruste Juxx & Rock Of Heltah Skeltah in the video for Raw Deal off the Boston based producer Bombdrop’s Dark Dayz Album, where he displayed a tight, competent, aggressive and skilled flow and rhyme scheme. His lyrics was thug/horrorcore related, but showing a certain finesse that transcends what we’re used to from the genre, at least in my opinion.

In 2016 his first EP/full-length sees the light of day. It’s called Pearly Gates and lyrics are as you might have guessed primarily about the ever present struggle of life & death / heaven & hell, struggling with inner demons, urban life and the daily grind, of course spiced up with the usual horrorcore topics, spit with the ferocious and savage delivery which has become his trademark.

"Gunpowder is... probably the highlight of the album,"

After a short intro called Bad Omens which pretty much tells you what we’re dealing with here, we’re thrown into the track Darkside which is driven by a piano sample, and the ever present punishing snare drums courtesy of producer Raw who is supplying beats for the entire disc.  Gunpowder is the first video-track from the album, and probably the highlight of the album with a beat featuring heavy brass-hits with some layered strings, and in it’s entirety makes a beautifully dark backdrop for Milez Grimez to spit his verbal acrobatics upon. Lines such as ”When I'm on the mic you dumb cowards better move, / son rhyme incredible/leavin' the microphone covered in gunpowder residue” - Now one would not wan’t to grace the mic after that, that’s for damn sure.

The title track features a bitter sweet vocal sample that really invokes the hardship and sorrow of the struggle with life and death and what happens in the afterlife, ones will to live life to the fullest and about losing loved ones to what’s inevitably the last destination. Other highlights on Pearly Gates are The Reaper which again features a dark and sinister sounding piano sample and dry hard snare drums to match, along with the anthem-like Countdown.

You might think this is basically just another run-of the mill horrorcore album, but as Grimez puts it himself: ”My music always stands alone, cause it’s too advanced to clone.” If you like your hip hop sample based, banging and raw as fuck, and are looking for that true hip hop from a hungry up-n comer straight from the US underground, you should look no further than Milez Grimez & Raw – Pearly Gates.

8/10


Released in 2016 by Doom Bap Music

Words by Martin Sørensen

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