Das Racist, performing at the Howlin’ Wolf tonight, is breaking molds in the rap world with their unconventional marketing and musical sound. The group’s racially satirized lyricism in their free online mixtapes Shut Up, Dude and Sit Down, Man landed them considerable attention. But group members Himanshu “Heems” Suri, Victor “Kool A.D.” Vazquez and Ashok “Dapwell” Kondabolu changed their marketing strategy with the recent release of their first commercial album Relax.
Das Racist. From left: Vazquez, Kondabolu, Suri. Photo by Simon Wald-Lasowski.
“It was an attempt to try to make more money by selling music instead of not selling music,” says Dapwell. He says that he thinks the commercialization of this album was necessary in order to profit in all aspects of their career. “There’s this thing, for whatever reason, where if you’re not selling your music, even if you’re very popular and have many articles written about you, certain segments of the music industry don’t take you very seriously. It becomes harder to make money.”
Selling their music is not the only change coming from the group. Dapwell says he thinks the album is of a higher quality than their previous mixtapes. “On this album, the production quality is just way better, and the major difference is just the fucking singing, man. The songs on there are tender.” He adds, “The rapping is better—it’s less repetitive. A lot of early-on shit was a bit repetitive.”
The album features of number of collaborative songs, such as “Happy Rappy”, produced by Diplo, and “Middle of the Cake”, produced by Anand Wilder of Yeasayer. Dapwell explained the group’s attempt to attract a broader audience: “Essentially, we’re paying people for beats, but it’s also a hobbyist attempt at expanding our appeal.” Describing the Diplo collaboration, he says, “We have a mutually beneficial, doubly parasitic relationship. We wanted to create an organic rap group musical movement.” He jokingly adds, “There are white kids who like Diplo and want to buy our album, so that worked out pretty well.”
The result of collaborating with different artists resulted in a variation of sounds on the album. Between Indian horns, pop beats, and hip-hop drum lines, it covers a wider musical range than the average rap album. Dapwell describes their music as “slacker rock rap—lackadaisical rapping over guitar-heavy rap beats with unusual drum patterns.” This he attributes partly to one of their collaborators, saying, “We recorded a lot more of the album with one person. His name is Patrick Wimberly, and there’s a lot of really unusual, weirdly-orchestrated tracks [from him].”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqd3L3F8HE8[/youtube]
The group’s lyricism adds more to their unconventional rap sound. The song “Relax” opens with the racially-oriented and seemingly irrelevant lines, “White devils like it. I’m drinking coffee brought to me by white devils’ sidekicks.” Dapwell remarks on the lyrics’ intentionally sarcastic words saying, “A lot of stupid fucking people are offended by our joking. A lot of stupid people think that mentioning race is racism. You shouldn’t pretend you don’t see race.” He went on defending the band’s raps, adding, “A lot of smart people don’t understand racism, so obviously a lot of stupid people don’t know what is or is not racism.”
Dapwell closed with words of affection for tonight’s tour stop. “New Orleans is great. I walked out of a bar the first time I was there and realized it was 6 a.m. and that was incredible. It’s a city that feels like another country. It doesn’t even feel like any specific other country I’ve even been to—but it feels like a weird place outside of America.”
Das Racist play the Howlin’ Wolf tonight at at 10 p.m. Tickets are $16.
