The Midwest meets the West Coast on the latest single from L.A. speed-rap extraordinaire Busdriver’s upcoming LP Perfect Hair, but everything — from the torrential flow to the scampering beats — remains buried deep underground. That’s fitting for a song entitled “Ego Death,” which also includes appearances by Detroit’s Danny Brown and San Francisco’s Aesop Rock.
As a voice continually exhorts, “We can make this better,” the three rappers do just that, trading verses of increasing intensity and escalating eccentricity. The six-minute track kicks off with Busdriver’s “militant mantras” about how “sleep and death have always been conjoined twins.” It’s bone-chilling subject matter matched only by Jeremiah Jae’s dread-inducing production.
When Busdriver hands the reins off to Aesop, video game sounds begin to populate the aural landscape. The 8-bit bombs and chiptune tones feel appropriate, because by the time he’s finished spitting, Aesop’s made mention of his Mario pajamas. They are the secret sauce in the rapper’s recipe, whose ingredients he lays out in a makeshift mise-en-place — everything from celery to a can of worms.
Aesop’s wordplay may be madcap, but Danny Brown is Manson. The shock rocker Marilyn is among the people Danny namechecks on his verse, which extends to more contemporary pop culture figures like Miley Cyrus. Still, hip hop’s weirdest wordsmith brings things full-circle by recalling “so many dead rappers” and “walking over carcasses of artists in [his] garden.”
Oddly enough, Busdriver’s new track was released on the birthday of one of those dead rappers — Tupac Shakur. Whether this bodes well for his forthcoming record is anyone’s guess. What we’ve got here, though, is pretty much perfect. Perfect Hair is due out September 9 via Big Dada.
Listen to “Ego Death” below: