Madzilliany
Rapper/producer collaboration albums have become a real staple among the up-and-comers of modern hip-hop, with some choice beat makers themselves having gained just as much attention as their word-sayer colleagues. With the way paved by the likes of Metro Boomin, new producers are entrenching themselves upon the music scene in way where they’re not just part of the background – rather the opposite. Kenny Beats, the Connecticut-born melody maker, has rocketed himself into public view with a host of excellent collaboration albums with his name clearly on the label, and his latest effort with Florida rapper Denzel Curry is just another step on the way to his surefire stardom.
This titanic team-up couldn’t have come at a better time in either guy’s careers, with both operating at full throttle in recent times. Denzel’s acclaimed TA1300 and its follow up ZUU have made him an unfathomable force in the music industry, consistently dropping high-quality output like it was a 9-5 job. Kenny Beats, just as confidently, moved quickly to coast on the hype of his collab albums with Rico Nasty and 03 Greedo by producing a weekly show called ‘The Cave’ – a YouTube-based series which finds a variety of rappers visiting Kenny in his studio where they make a 10-minute masterpiece to the elation of his hungry audience.
UNLOCKED finds them both in devilish harmony, stepping away from the trap sounds of the current landscape and instead emulating the raw, underground boom-bap of the South in the 2000s. From the word go the record is reminiscent of the classic MF DOOM/ Madlib collab Madvillainy, sampling old, grainy movie and TV clips and having them pepper any build-ups to when Kenny’s instrumentals knock the whiplash back into you.
Acid-washed with shrill piano melodies and the crashing of ear-piercing snares, UNLOCKED is synergistic music personified. At every moment, Denzel sounds as hungry as the beats he’s eating, spitting maniacal bars like “My bitch bad like battle rappers who make albums” (‘Pyro’) and “Body shame game aim is intense / Surfboard body ass boy with your fish tits” (‘Lay_Up.m4a’) with vigorous intent. On the album’s second track ‘Take_it_Back_v2’ Denzel claims he’ll turn a head to gushers while Kenny’s percussion rides an aggressive groove with a demonic bassline to boot.
The record’s subversion of any expectation of either of these guys leaning on contemporary trends continues with the bouncy, smooth ‘So.Incredible.pkg’ and the hard-wired ‘DIET_’ complete with an impressive DMX impression. It toes the line between hard-knock Houston Crunk and grimy New York rap, but the self-assurance of the two game-changers found here could balance a tow truck on dental floss.
Denzel Curry remains one of the most exciting rappers of his uncontrollable generation, while Kenny Beats indicts himself as a shining necessity in modern hip-hop. UNLOCKED, as its names suggest, indicates an untapped potential for dynamic dominance that its short run time merely scratches the surface of. As if in liquid form, these are two figures who can adjust themselves to fit whatever bill they need to, and do it with the infectious confidence reflected in their stellar musical output. It turns out when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object – they make a banger of an album.
The High End Theory 
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