KATZ WITH A K

The first whisper on the proverbial grapevine that we heard of Katz was Dr. Syntax describing him as “If Cannibal Ox were from Sheffield, sort of.” If that’s not an urgent invitation to immediately go absorb a soundcloud rapper’s music then water isn’t wet.

The 3 projects we've recieved from him since (third dropping later this year) have kept things defiantly strange. A discordant yet banging, jarring yet witty, offensive yet insightful musical paradox.

Lyrically theres a lot to unpack. Verses are both rooted in the things witnessed from doing road as a younger, and after luckily avoiding the worst case scenarios, growing into a different kind of not giving a fuck that only comes with age. Drawing on unashamedly nerdy interests in cinema, literature and politics, deep rooted disdain and flippant humour, the stream of consciousness that emerges spawns quotables about fingering Tories, polygamy on heroin farms and selling fire to deities.

This verbal road-less-travelled was fittingly matched with the joyously bizarre beatscapes provided by producer Phoneutrian on Black Magick and Red Wine. Further down the same route less travelled, 2O25 sees new project The Fixer in collaboration with procuder Muccarelli continue pushing the sonic boundaries. Nobody’s doing it quite like Katz. Sharing more in spirit with the kind of counter-scene that US label Def Jux embodied than it does with your average UK hip hop, the comparison to the likes of Ox is hitting the perversely angled nail as close to the head as possible.