8 Artists to Listen to If You Like Ratking

Ratking's "So It Goes" dropped yesterday, and if you're feeling it, here are similar artists to get into now.

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Yesterday, New York alt rap group Ratking released their debut album, So It Goes. For rap purists, the trio’s ability to make music—even slightly—close to the boom-bap, acid-jazz aesthetic of New York’s past will be enough to hold them until the next golden era-obsessed teen pops up on SoundCloud. But what makes Ratking’s work interesting beyond its ability to function as a quasi-traditionalist output, are the other styles the group’s beatmaker, Sporting Life, puts together to conjure up a refreshingly weird take on hip-hop.

So It Goes moves from saxophone-infused tracks like “Snow Beach” where frontman Wiki aggressively touches on his disgust with the accelerated changes to the New York he grew up in. They recruit King Krule to add to the city-kid perspective on “So Sick Stories” and they make an anti-cop track with “Remove Ya” which samples Sanchez’s “One In A Million,” just as Juelz Santana did for “Dipset Anthem”. What makes Ratking so appealing is their ability to incorporate their equal appreciation for jazz, punk rock and heavy drums, chewing it up and spitting it out as a unique product. And after you get done absorbing, So It Goes, here are a few more artists who are doing interesting things in rap that you should listen to including Cities Aviv, B L A C K I E, and more.

Lawrence Burney is a writer living in Baltimore who makes a bi-monthly zine called "True Laurels." Follow him on Twitter @TrueLaurels

RELATED: Stream Ratking's New Album "So It Goes"
RELATED: RATKING and King Krule Link Up For the Video For "So Sick Stories"

Leikeli47

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Hometown: Brooklyn

Twitter: @Leikeli47

You should listen to: "Miss America"

Brooklyn’s Leikeli47 rocks a ski-mask to hide her identity but it’s still not hard to connect to her music. Her musical palette includes the tempo of club music, occasional distortion of noise artists, sleek croons of R&B and witty shit-talking of traditional rap. But what makes her compelling is her ability to speak on issues relevant to the plight of the female emcee without being boring or preachy. All of these elements are highlighted on her tape, Lk-47pt.II which was released in February. The tape’s standout track “Miss America” opens with a skit of a young kid asking his father why girls have to wear pink and why boys have to wear other colors before Leikeli enters, proclaiming her individualism in between a hook that repeats “dress like a boy/ talk like a girl/ walk like a girl.” 

Later in Lk-47, she starts “They Got Hate” off by saying “This ain’t too African. This ain’t too Puerto Rican. This ain’t too West Coast. It’s just music”. That track is followed by her rendition of Drake’s “Hold On We’re Going Home” with “T.h.a.i”. Hellbent on staying free of categorization, still flying under the radar and having such range in a small body of work leaves hopes that Leikeli47 will keep pushing until she creates a style that is uniquely her own.

clipping.

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Hometown: Los Angeles

Twitter: @clppng

You should listen to: "five" 

Los Angeles’ noise-rap band, clipping., is one of the more experimental acts within hip-hop. They aim to make music as chaotic and loud as possible and they’ve mastered that execution with an impressively eclectic trio. Diggs is clipping.’s frontman who, instead of taking the first-person approach of most rap, takes an analytical outsider look into all things fucked up in the world.

Snipes—one of two producers—makes music for television and Hutson specializes in noise. clipping.’s appeal comes from these three members, while also from different vantage points, being able to make a finished product that sounds like it should have never worked. Diggs’ relentless speed-rapping meshes perfectly with the pure destruction that backs him (see “five”). The band’s debut album, CLPPNG is set to release on June 10th via Sub Pop.

Cakes Da Killa

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Hometown: Englewood, New Jersey

Twitter: @CAKESDAKILLA

You should listen to: "Da Good Book"

Let’s keep it 100, if it weren’t for Cakes Da Killa being gay, rap purists would be drooling over his lyrical skill. The Jersey native was highlighted in Pitchfork’s 2012 story on the burgeoning queer rap scene in NYC and since then he’s been releasing hard-hitting tracks that are effective whether you’re trying to vibe to danceable rap or zero in on the lyrical exercises he puts out regularly. In early 2013, he released his first full-length project, The Eulogy, which falls right into what excites rap fans the most—an unwavering output of pure shit-talking and witty punchlines.

What ironically keeps some listeners away from Cakes is what gets regurgitated in rap the most—sexually charged lyrics. On The Eulogy’s opening track, “Get Right (Get Wet)” he spits: “Pockets stay on swole, peep the muthafuckin’ cashflow/ Niggas pay my loans just to finger-fuck my asshole.” No matter what people’s reasons for not listening are, they’re gonna miss out on one of the most entertaining spitters in the game with Cakes. 

B L A C K I E

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Hometown: Houston

Twitter: @B_L_A_C_K_I_E

You should listen to: "Revolutionary Party Pt. 2"

An argument can be made that Houston’s B L A C K I E godfathered the art of consistently living on hip-hop’s fringes. Since 2005, he’s been releasing industrial, electronic variations of rap that some cite as being the main influence on Death Grips’ musical output. As much of a noise-artist that he is a rapper, BLACKIE’s music isn’t concerned with widespread recognition as it is with pushing one’s own self through life’s bullshit.

With the help of some whiskey, weed and Red Bull, he recorded his most recent album, 2013’s FUCK THE FALSE, in one take over beats that he put together himself. A lot of that album touches on him battling personal demons, having people bite his style and ruling the underground while saying “fuck you” to the mainstream. Having experimented with an endless amount of musical styles, he says that he next album will be heavily influenced by jazz. At this year’s SXSW, his intimate, but fiery performance had multiple dudes in the crowd holding back tears and even going over to hug him before he even finished his set.

Abdu Ali

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Hometown: Baltimore

Twitter: @AbduAli

You should listen to: "Machete Warz"

There’s no easy way to define Baltimore’s bubbling alt rapper, Abdu Ali. Flipping what most accept as hip-hop on its ear, he started making music in 2012 and released his debut project, INVICTOS—an uninhibited, spiritually-charged journey of self-identity. Musically, he incorporates not only rap, but ballroom music, Baltimore club, and punk into his repertoire as well. His sophomore effort, Push + Slay. dropped in Fall 2013 and showcased him as a more well-versed artist. Church sermon-worthy incantations laid over a collection of production by frequent contributor Schwarz—who crafts a Baltimore club-driven style that flashes ethereal, foggy backdrops and menacing crunk beats from Three 6 Mafia’s early days— landed Push + Slay a spot in SPIN’s November albums of note last year.

With a refreshingly transparent catalog and a performance more gripping and energetic than most (seriously, this dude gets so turnt) Ali looks like he’ll continue churning out quality material. This summer he’ll be releasing a vinyl album called INFINITY EPIPHANIES through Araca Records and it’ll include production from B L A C K I E. Some of his notable cuts are “360”, “Machete Warz” and “Bleed.”

Antwon

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Hometown: San Diego

Twitter: @AAANTWON

You should listen to: "Rain Dance"

Though he’s been making waves within the underground scene for a few years now, Antwon is still relatively unknown to those not paying attention to alt rap music. His music has gone through a few stages when it comes to how he’s classified. Some call it punk-rap, some deem it as cloud-rap and others chalk it up as just trying to channel the 90’s Cali boy, chill-life rap. Whatever the case, the San Diego-native is one to watch because of delivery, charisma (both on wax and on stage) and ability to be vulnerable.

Not wanting to be aligned with the ever-so-familiar larger-than-life machismo in rap, Twon focuses more on what comes to him naturally, being a lover. On tracks like “3rd World Girl” from last year’s In Dark Denim, he says things like, “Ah damn, I wish I was your main man/Cut cake, hold hands, kissing with no game plan/Laying in the bed, coochie made me quiver/I lay inside your love with your body in a river.” Think of him as the “dude next door” version of Drake, with less flexing. His next album Heavy Hearted In Doldrums in due out on May 6th and has a collab with Lil Ugly Mane, ”Rain Dance”, out now.

Le1f

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Hometown: Manhattan/NYC

Twitter: @LE1FNY

You should listen to: "Swerve" 

Between recently signing with Terrible Records/XL Recordings, performing on Letterman with Blood Orange and shutting down another rant from Lord Jamar who says rappers like Kanye West and him are “feminizing” rap’s image of the strong black male, Le1f is quickly making a name for himself outside of the underground he’s made waves in for the last few years.

First getting widespread buzz with his bounce-encouraging 2012 single “Wut,” Le1f’s raps and production are at times murky with his low-pitch warbling, while at other times he’s making head-spinning base-heavy cuts like last year’s “Cloud So Loud”. His recent Hey EP finds him at his most lyrically inventive. On every track he flows more fluidly than he does in earlier work and as more attention pours in, he seems more focused on proving himself as someone with lyrical ability, even if that means coming at bandwagoners and those who’ve been sleeping on him the whole time.

Cities Aviv

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Hometown: Memphis

Twitter: @CitiesAviv

You should listen to: "URL IRL"

Brooklyn-based Memphis native Cities Aviv possesses a skill that is, at this point of music consumption, sorely undervalued and overlooked—he makes really good sounding music. Coming from a punk background, Aviv’s approach to the songs he produces for himself uniquely stays true to old-guard rap conventions like sampling of obscure disco and soul cuts but he adds his own flavor by frequently distorting his vocals and leveling them with the track. In January he released his first official album, Come To Life, which takes those soul samples, loops and speeds them up, creating a more danceable brand of rap.

That album’s weight is magnified with tracks like “Fool”, “URL IRL” and “Dissolve”, where over those vibrant beats, he touches on the matrix that we’re all being pulled into in 2014. His frequent gripes point to millennials’ heightened narcissism, loss of identity and how, he too, falls into the trappings of the digital world.

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