Wasiu BLKKOUT Cover Art Square
The Western world thrives on erasure. Amazon offers the illusion that all the world can be shipped same-day; smartphones create a make-believe in which every human's presence can manifest itself in the palm of our hand. History books gloss over gruesome moments and supply chains hide hours upon hours of underpaid toil. Meanwhile the spotlight glows ever hotter, brighter, whiter.
24-year-old Montreal MC Wasiu is hip to this game. The politically-minded rapper has no fear of taking on problems of class, nationalities, money and power. On his newest release, "BLKKKOUT," it's the creeping advance white control over black culture that motivates his work.
Here, on the last day of Black History Month, Waisu enters as a kind of Harlem poet with pages of verse in one hand, mic in the other. Over a funereal ride cymbal (much credit to Hesk and Paveun) Waisu puts on a lesson in rising tension that many appers twice his age would be wise to take notes on. His syllables quickly begin to topple just as the kick gets palpitations. "BLKKKOUT" beats its fists on the glass table upon which society sits, and with each fang-toothed snare, each firebrand "Fuck," the table cracks at ugly angles. Waisu calls out war admirals, politicians, drug dealers, materialism, corporate executive boards and (yes) Macklemore as both sources and symptoms of the struggle. In that struggle is erasure so powerful that Waisu has let it seep into his song's title itself.
But that erasure serves a purpose--"BLKKKOUT" calls out the Klan ideology that still trickles down into our police forces, award show academies, trade deals and bullshit luxury marketing. With so many working to keep blackness unseen, Waisu here refuses to let it be unheard. Stream the new premiere below.
