Baishe Kings are a London based hip-hop septuplet who’ve taken on the Herculean task of releasing one album free via Soundcloud every month for a year.
The collective, consisting of members Shin Tesh, F.King Taisho, T.Funk, King Toe Knee, Geekus, Herdavim? and Squint Eastwood, have been summed up as “somewhat left of left-field” with comparisons to Odd Future and A Tribe Called Quest, but their sound is distinctive for the way it combines traditional American rapping styles with a uniquely British flavour. You can see the crew in action here, delivering a freestyle session based around their track ‘Cheese’ for Brapp TV.
Each of the albums in their year-long series is seven tracks long, and the seventh in the run – ‘Celebraishe (A Lad’s Journey)’ – include the ingeniously programmed breakbeat shuffle and lilting guitars of ‘Got it’ and the equally summer sounding ‘Figure 4’. The slow motion, timsetsretched paranoia of ‘Tell ‘Em’, meanwhile, exhibits their more left-field slant admirably.
The next offering from the set, ‘Lapdance (A Taff’s Odyssey)’, is due out at the end of this month. As benefits the seasonal change from summer to autumn, this selection of seven tracks has a slightly darker feel, again blending influences of old skool hip-hop and Uk garage and grime to create an original, entrancing new sound.
The seven tracks here continues the short, sharp, hit and run approach of its predecessor, with ‘Baggy Trousers’ chewing up cartoon samples with slowed down beats and stoned sounding brass parts, topped up with some very British sounding rapping and nicely lazy backing vocals. ‘Whip’ is probably the closest the band have come to the twisted styles of Odd Future, densely filtered and claustrophobic, while ‘Shake It’ is built around skippy, garage-influenced beats and lush R&B, although the edgy, almost whispered rapping means it never quite fits into the comfortably commercial bracket.
This link on Soundcloud sees them weaving together some of the highlights from both LPs into a minimix for readers’ ears….
https://soundcloud.com/squinteastwood/celebraishe-lapdance-minimix
Check the band’s Facebook page:
