MESSIAH! links with Ovrkast and MAVI for a lofi radiator

Rap Blog is a weekly showcase of a notable rap song.

“Relive yourself and listen, it’s important that you understand, I fell off the porch and I made a portrait with the skin that I tore,” unfolds a particularly encompassing sentence from MESSIAH! on “Silent Heel,” a minor act of fractal tasseography linking the Charlotte rapper’s music to the random machinations of the cosmos — as above, as below. But the pain does not last: this brief divinatory detour takes place between walking around in silver whips with four horsemen/minions and treating “this Benji who runs after bullshit like the Olympics”.

“They said we were three fifths, so we collected three fives,” goes a memorable koan. Capitalist functioning is of course stimulated by the fact that “freedom” is not free, but the MESSIAH! prefers a “five-finger discount” anyway.

He’s joined on “Silent Heel” by Charlotte native MAVI (the two are frequent collaborators and tour mates) and Oakland’s Ovrkast, who produced the track’s stealthy lofi beat and kicks off proceedings with a verse charming and loquacious, fitting syllables into measures like a handful. of dollar bills in the pocket of his skinny jeans. And MAVI is MAVI; trying to quote a single line of his verse can feel like ripping a page out of a very good book. Here he’s perfectly limber and committed, paying off his student loans with street credit and rapping about MESSIAH! and Ovrkast’s verses in the music video. He looks fluid and unfazed, like he’s not even really trying hard. But making it look that easy is just show biz.