KILLER MIKE at Wrongbar (1279 Queen West), Saturday (June 16), 1 am. NXNE wristband/pass only Yonge-Dundas Square, Sunday (June 17), 8 pm. Free.
NXNE provides two opportunities to see Killer Mike – Dungeon Family compatriot, T.I. affiliate, Grammy winner – and, borrowing the Atlanta rapper’s Southern parlance, you’d be a damn fool not to accept.
After graduating from a slept-on trilogy with 2011’s PL3DGE, Mike Render is in thesis-defence mode on R.A.P. Music, a collaboration with producer El-P that’s becoming one of the most critically decorated rap albums of the year. (Check this week’s New Yorker.)
But let’s do away with genre distinctions entirely – it’s one of the strongest releases, period. Mike disdainfully slaps an apathetic music world upside the head, and the result is smart as hell, scathing and so necessary. Go twice.
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