Elespee & Prospek - The Trip EP

On their latest collaboration, rapper Elespee and producer Prospek set off on a hallucinogenic trek through the decadent and depraved streets of New Orleans. The aptly-titled The Trip EP plays like a hip-hop homage to Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas—a streetwise journey to the heart of the Hip-Hop Dream.

All 10 of The Trip EP’s tracks were the result of a drug-fueled weekend at Prospek’s Inner Recess Studios. “I’m trippin’ balls right now,” Elespee utters as he launches into “How’d You Get Here.” The song tells the tale of the pair dropping acid in the French Quarter, praying at the doors of the House of Blues, and “blending street gumbo” onstage at the Dragon’s Den. Along the way, they coax senior citizens into exposing themselves and give props to Crescent City DJs Tony Skratchere, E.F. Cuttin and Maddie Ruthless.

To preserve the fidelity of Elespee’s warped, subversive vision, none of the tracks received any post-production work. The outcome is like a lost session between the RZA and Andre 3000 recorded in another dimension: Prospek layers hazy, mercurial grooves on top of soulful jazz samples and raw, skeletal beats while Elespee’s swift, perplexing flow laces each cut. “My kingdom for a horse or at least a decent snare / a quick drum I can ride from way out there / to boldly go where no one cares,” he spits, sizing up Shakespeare and Star Trek in the final verse of “Channels of the Mind” before the head-nodding ride devolves into a string of B-movie sound clips.

After the chilled, ambient “Attempt” transcends the grind of the streets, the set standout “Sunrise,” which samples Duke Ellington’s “I Like the Sunrise,” offers a moment of clarity amidst the clamor. Still, it’s the lysergic leanings of “Rabbit Hole Rhyming” that best captures The Trip’s deranged allusions: “The future’s now, stupid, and they say he’s a psychotic / He dropped a killer disc and the loonies ran to cop it.”

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