Radioactive Dreams

Two years later and Drasar Monumental is back with another brand new EP, entitled Chernobyl Sessions.  This project has a solid, timeless sound.  You've got classic Hip-Hop production with a modern bent.  Some of it sounds like raw, 90s NY, and lyrically, "2012" is full of fun old school references.  But then the music will suddenly flip to something modern and experimental, and then you'll catch that old drum riff from "The Bridge."  So on the one hand, you never know what to expect next moment to moment, but on the other hand there's a reliable consistency to Drasar, as a producer and an MC.  A startling sample will come completely out of left field, but yet he manages to make it all feel of a piece.

"DMW" starts out turning a tough "On the Run" vocal sample (appropriately, not the only time Kool G Rap's voice turns up on this record... the way he literally spits his bars makes his voice a perfect fit for this EP's invective attitude.) into a hard life lesson over a heavy beat. "You claim to stand on business but don't have a business to stand on.  Act like life is a sprint, but it's a marathon; so you crashed out, took the fast route, only concerned with cash flow in large amounts. Treat life like a game, you get gamed on. Don't know how to move, you get moved on. Don't know how to bang, you're gettin' banged on. Emptied the clip; your clique got rained on. It's the same song everywhere you look; everybody's a crook 'till you get booked. Now you're shook. Visualize your coffin; now you're a dead man walkin'."  But Drasar fans know by now, he doesn't like to stand in one place for long, and two minutes into the song, he's flipping it up with some crazy flute samples, and a new, high energy kicks in and the next verse is just about setting it on other MCs.  Then all the samples are slowed and spaced out for an almost psychedelic meltdown.

Drasar does his own scratches as well, and "Vitriol" opens with some slick scribbles over a killer bassline, going off on modern producers. "Sample kits, digital diggin', popped up at your session, wanted to kill 'im! ...Comedy, a real fuckin' joke, made me want to cuff my hands around your throat.  But it's not all rap shit; mid-way through "Post Covid Takes" a serious turn that lives up to its title.  "It's all fun and games 'till you get stuffed in a casket.  Post Covid, it's like a bad acid trip.  Hallucinations, broken visions; I watched a whole generation get thrown in prisons. Broken homes lead to broken dreams; hopeless tryin' not to end up homeless. Desensitized normalized manslaughter, timeline snuff films traumatize our sons and daughters. Pain ...Slave wages, poverty's contagious like the black plague. We don't practice group economics so it's impossible for us to stack bread."  That last line's a slant rhyme, but it's so sick.  And, you know, true.  Drasar hits as hard as ever, in every sense.  If you guys haven't checked him out yet, seriously, look his stuff up.

As you can see up top, this comes in a full picture cover from Drasar's own label, Vendetta Vinyl, where this can be ordered directly.  All the vocal tracks are on side 1, and all the instrumentals, which haven't been released digitally, are on side 2.  A CD version is also available from the Hawaiian label DITCD, which also includes the instrumentals.