Following up last year’s BlackBolshevik, Ghais Guevara takes his densely layered, sample-heavy production up another notch on There Will Be No Super-Slave. To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first heard his debut. Ghais Guevara sounds heavily influenced by JPEGMAFIA’s style of experimental hip-hop with a frantic flow and breakneck instrumentals that contort samples beyond recognition. The main differences are the Kanye-esque pitching of chipmunk soul vocals and the unapologetic commitment to leftist themes and communism. Revolution, martyrs, violence, and anti-capitalism thematically fall into the vivid lyricism set down on There Will Be No Super-Slave. The title is derived from a Jonathan Jackson quote to George Jackson in his book Blood in My Eye. “While we await the precise moment when all of capitalism’s victims will indignantly rise to destroy the system, we are being devoured in family lots at the whim of this thing. There will be no super-slave. Some of us are going to have to take our courage in hand and build a hard revolutionary cadre for selective retaliatory violence.” The idea is that imperialism and capitalism cannot be stopped by waiting around for a revolution that others create. There needs to be direct action and organization instead of dreaming about future possibilities that won’t ever come.
The most impressive part of There Will Be No Super-Slave is how the dense production is being manipulated. Featuring so many samples that it almost feels like a plunderphonic work, Ghais Guevara plays with different vocal pitches, cuts, and loops over the 44-minute runtime. Revolutionary recordings, Silk Sonic songs, the PS4 startup sound, the Coach Carter speech, and more get cut and chipmunk pitched. It’s a barrage of sound that’s both a throwback to the early 2000s while retaining a modern twist on experimental hip-hop. The mesmerizing production is further elevated by the tight drum work and influences from jazz, soul, pop, and punk. It sets a solid backdrop for Ghais Guevara as he delivers a verbose whirlwind of lyricism. He doesn’t hold back in his criticisms of white supremacy, the worthless styles of protest from people like BLM founder Patrisse Cullors, the oxymoron in non-violent revolutions, and the danger of complacency in the face of capitalism. Incredibly, Ghais Guevara never sounds preachy in his musings of leftist theory and social commentary. His dark sense of humor underscores the 15 tracks and prevents the project from otherwise sounding like a political lecture. On “Shirk”, he raps about the souls of the deceased smiling down as a Nazi gets curb stomped: “Stomp a Nazi in my Prada/Swear we everything you not/All the shootas in Valhalla/Watching all they children smile”. You can’t always tell if he’s joking and that works to great effect on songs like “Patrisse Cullors Stole My Lunch Money” when he samples: “I’d like to send a special shoutout/To my homeboy OJ Simpson/Keep up the good work baby/Two less we gotta worry about, you understand” from a Smoky Mountain wrestling promo. That charisma helps give the songs their own style away from what one might expect.
There are a few moments of weakness but they rarely detract from the overall cohesion of the album. As an independent artist, the mixing and mastering on There Will Be No Super-Slave isn’t always great with muddled vocals getting hidden under the dense production. There are times when this works to the benefit of the songs as the abrasive edge in experimental hip-hop relies on that raw sound. In a rap project, especially one that depends heavily on lyricism to make political commentary, it’s important that the vocals are usually above everything else. There Will Be No Super-Slave occasionally suffers from low vocals and the otherwise great delivery gets stifled by the wall of sound. The two short interludes, “Trigger Discipline” and “Tie Your Camel, Trust in God” are both spoken-word but it’s difficult to care when the production on them is far more interesting. Consistency on the project waxes and wanes and while it’s his best project so far, there’s also a clear direction he can take to tighten up his future work. Either way though, there’s no doubt that Ghais Guevara is one of the most exciting voices to come from the underground in the past few years. Honestly, There Will Be No Super-Slave is album of the year material purely off the strength of “Face/Off”, one of the hardest beats I’ve ever heard. Unapologetic, scorchingly critical, and an absolute ride from start to finish, There Will Be No Super-Slave is proof that Ghais Guevara has what it takes to become a titan in the genre.
Must Listens: #FREEMIR, Face/Off, Rayman Legends