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After being introduced to Bishop Nehru last week on “Misruled Order,” the 16 year-old emcee gives us a full window into his retro-leaning raps on debut mixtape Nehruvia. Following a pattern laid out by like minded youngsters Joey Bada$$ and his Pro Era crew, mixing beats from well-worn names like J Dilla, DJ Premier, and MF Doom with original production that hews close to the cloth cut by legends.
While it’s easy to fall back on Joey comparison–teen rapper grabs jazzy beats, pays tribute to past, blog buzz ensues–it doesn’t work one to one. It seems there’s a bit more behind Nehru’s mission, as evidenced by the global thought behind his moniker:
“Bishop chose his name from inspiration taken from Tupac’s character in the movie ‘Juice,’ noting that the character of Bishop inspires him ‘to go out and get mine, you’ve got to earn respect.’ The Nehru is taken from the the former prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, who worked closely with legendary peacemaker Gandhi but never got the credit for his work.“
Nehruvia culls samples from Tupac interviews and Juice itself to create something a bit more complicated than a simple Golden Era homage–it’s classicist rap for the internet era, a tacit acknowledgement that we’ve all got YouTube and Netflix and that the past is imminently accessible wherever a modem is available.
Check out Nehruvia below.
