We’ve been watching the Asian hip hop landscape change and grow lately, and one of our favorite hip hop and trap groups to come out of this movement is Higher Brothers. The collective of rappers have even been supported by 88Rising and gone on tour internationally with the likes of Rich Brian and Joji. No doubt one of the group’s most catchy songs is Made In China, and that punchy track has now gotten the DJ Snake treatment on an incendiary bass-turnt remix. Go on and get those trap hands up as we lose it to the hard hitting trap and bass banger.
We’ve been eagerly watching the hip hop and trap scene burst wide open in Asia, spearheaded by an invigorating and fascinating movement in China. At the forefront of this activity is Higher Brothers, a collective of artists who mostly rap in Mandarin Chinese, but they toss in plenty of English phrases, too. The group recently toured with fellow groundbreaking Asian artists like Joji and Rich Brian on 88Rising’s Double Happiness Tour, and they’ll be making their way out to SXSW next month, too. Their latest single, Trickery, is one of their grooviest and eclectic songs yet. While other ones were rough swaggering trap jams that evoked Migos and Fetty Wap, this slick hip hop banger exudes some old school West Coast hip hop vibes. It’s like Snoop and Migos, with an iota of MJ tossed in, too. Trickery is more than dance worthy and undeniably contagious. It comes from the crew’s new EP, TYPE3, arriving next week. Higher Brothers obviously has plenty of tricks up their sleeves when it comes to the range of their hip hop sound.
Though a visionary and inventive item back home in Taiwan, Taipei City based experimental hip hop artist Aristophanes only recently became a known name across the Pacific due to her role on Grimes’ scintillating Art Angels track, Scream. Her unique style and riveting delivery quickly caught the attention of many heavy hitters in the industry. Unexpected as it was, she went on to work with Will Butler from Arcade Fire on her following singles. Aristophanes now returns, sinuous twisting vocals and all, on a fresh new track that sees her re-uniting with Claire Boucher. 人為機器 (Humans Become Machines) is a bristling mesmeric, sinister winding delight. This dark serpentine, soupy chaotic rap ditty is more than fierce. Though even a Mandarin speaker like me needs to concentrate at times to figure out the exact wild contorting poetics that flows out of her mouth, there’s no doubt you don’t have to understand exactly what’s going on to enjoy Aristophanes’ wicked entrancing single. Plus, we get to hear Grimes. 人為機器 (Humans Become Machines) will arrive as a single February 24th via Big Picnic Records.
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