Rewite: Krsitoff Krane and Sadistik, “Prey For Paralysis” (Crushkill Recordings, 2011)

If 1989’s classic Biz Markie is the king of emo-rap, then the Minneapolis underground rap scene is his mulatto, illegitimate, angsty-arty love child from a suburban skinny-jeans-wearing turntablist. Samples of dusty piano chords mixed in with random vocal bits interrupted by distinct and unexpected DJ scratching are what make the Twin Cities rap culture unique. It’s also notably more multilayered than its New York roots; the Twin Cities emcees do not want you to forget that they aren’t a “coast,” but rather the country’s inner muscle—that’s sick, tired, hungover and pissed off.

That being said, Minneapolis native Kristoff Krane and Sadistik’s latest project, “Prey for Paralysis” is characteristically not in any forgiving mood. With their visually depressing lyrics mashed with melancholic and menacing group No Bird Sing member Graham O’Brien’s production techniques, the album is not short of a twisted kick-in-the-gut whirlwind of eerie phenomena. “Prey for Paralysis” is beautifully succinct and emotive, the perfect convergence of methods, attacking the listener’s auditory nerves with a powerful punk thrust, cynical observations, and an out-and-out assault on hip-hop’s standards.

Sadistik and Krane’s styles exhibit a similar background in poetry and prose, as they both execute a desire to make hip-hop that pushes musical boundaries. Krane’s earlier work contains uncommon backtracks, using samples of experimental jazz, rock and hip-hop beats. Though generally known to create relatable music with a positive outlook, curiously, Krane evades any positivity on this collaborative effort. Instead, he matches Sadistik’s darker, apocalyptic flavor. And, with both rappers on the same page, Sadistik and Krane prove to be a great match. Both are able to pull the listener in with their abstract imagery and long form narrative within each of their rhymes. We see this in the track “Higher Brain:” “I’m gonna bite the hand that feeds until I masticate and make it live in me like a symphony that dances in acid rain…It’s like I’m alone inside a little winter getting bitter from the frigid shivers.” They are both tremendously wordy, however, the real tastiness comes from the traditional rapping cadences transitioned with occasional bouts of singing.

An album this dark and depressing walks the thin line of being emotionally redundant, but with only 10 tracks it avoids becoming an overbearing downer. "Pyramid Song" kicks it off and sets the tone for the album as Sadistik and Krane contemplate the meaning of life back and forth, without any glimpse of hope. In "Bad Timing," we see this cynicism carried on. Krane recites:

Without a doubt in my mind, in the blink of an eye
The world as we know it will be combined
All the seas will go dry, all the creatures will die
All the trees will topple over and the humans will hide
Will look up in the sky and repeat the word ‘why?’
And deep down in our hearts we will plead for their lives.

After Sadistik and Krane taunt life’s fated future above jagged guitars and lurid drum rolls for 22 solid minutes, you’re left with a bizarre cloudy feeling similar to exiting an unnerving paranormal haunted house. Blending hip-hop and rock is no easy task, but with producer O'Brien providing bleak industrial music that adds the push-over-the-edge, "Prey for Paralysis" is every bit the perfect tornado of pessimistic energy rock and hip-hop now have in common.