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Aggressively Ethnically Ambiguous

by Rhys Langston

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    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $7 USD  or more

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Fresh from the coffers of the Estate, available are limited edition Digipak CDs of Rhys Langston's first full-length, Aggressively Ethnically Ambiguous.

    Includes 12-page full color booklet of handwritten lyrics with four additional portraits taken by Parker Day.

    The album digitally releases on September 1st, but orders of the CD will be shipped out one week early, to reward the early adopters.
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    Includes unlimited streaming of Aggressively Ethnically Ambiguous via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days

      $10 USD or more 

     

1.
[intro] code-switching yeah we code switching (flipping the switches) yeah we, yeah we, yeah we [Chorus] code switch when politics blend, respect expectation, cede mouth over win x3 code switch when politics blend, respect expectation, over mouth cede win [Verse One] There’s a good pastrami deli in the north of Timbuktu. but Hasidic zealotry prefers a rye tuna bleu. In Nunavut, Greenland I’ve seen it all come true while watching court side with the one that flew Cuckoo. Wycherley hands the rock to Vonnegut, his ankles are broke, that poetry in motion, hoop and writing in the spokes.
One wrong move, yoked and poked, Will/Bill takes no notes. Victoria is on the Jumbotron without a cloak. Huxley decline post-game comments. Orwell and he were traded. They stayed on the floor, Put up shots, got soma-faded. I “double thinked” then double blinked. A wormhole closed, I found a drink. Gelatinous pink overwhelmed that icy rink, but the story of the puck is for a longer mature brink. (and I suggest you just think) Of words far less circuitous, where explanations are a must, where I can dig under the crush. On C.P.T. I never rush. [Chorus] [Verse Two] semblance to the sewers, rakes muck, what the fuck: idioms, expletive, jingoism, yellowed news, yolk thrown up (bounty lips, commercial absorption, taglines trace the foreskin, precede the pill, activation for endorphins) storming, free warring north end, aisle 6, steel cut porridge, headline the morning latte: “oats go well with an orange” man coughs god bombs, Yahweh’s steel, open arms, pretext, testament, glaze over the talk show, donut psalms. instead, “lawn jockey, hockey puck, the verandah is a slut,” redressed in exposés, cotton cloth, in God we bluff (yeah), in God we bluff (yeah), in God we bluff (yeah), fund is to trust as sum is to us, consumed sans the crust, napkins stained enough, those in need of proof can check the green lips of the higher ups. It’s half past brunch y’all (it’s half past brunch). [indistinguishable] [Chorus]
2.
breaded cutlet circa Thailand town Phuket; Siamese joined bucket for that appropriative luggage Tea parties, diet fascism, and neocon light. catharsis politics, altruism: Postmodern Delight Mayans hunted, death squad puppets, Guatemalan head cheese buckets, commanders in Nantucket, and in Thailand poor say, “Phuket” the hills are disappearing, those on which the masters crafted, their paintings, their musings, replaced by strip mall cancer. Scott Walker’s a pole dancer, rides a long chain of command, contrived before the tale of the trance on Congo sand; gigahertz and Mister Kurtz, Apple TV, orange irks, washing away the Jersey Shore, no work for more net worth. Mothafucka, I was birthed by the hearth in the earth, moms had mirth. Just that one year-old, chattering, flattering, splattering, staggering. Childhood sing, my innocence would ring, until the whole world became a Carpenter’s Thing.
3.
frame 1: close up, Black behind the ears, effaced the “I”, drunk off triple distilled bottle of white tears. trailed off and picked up on a surgically-repaired knee, reference point: Suburban fantasy Mr. Miyagi found who I was projected as chilling with Edward Said, finished drafts of post-colonial raps, playing Cooking Mama on my Wii at the close of Eid, figured innovation as a symptom of postmodern greed actually well, devoid of linguistics, subaltern speech, regaled with economic theory, singular narrative genes, trauma supposed only allele, as so to speak, Schedule One nine-to-five breaths rise in the east and rise in the yeast with some Obligatory Techno-Orientalism cleared the sample and adjusted to that 400 meter rhythm, ran out of time to share my clickbait anachronisms and deposited my liberal outrage in a dingy prison profit margins scribbled with all those investor stock options, excel spreadsheet recurring dreams with all them groups watching, esoteric cold sweat mornings after flip-top macbook hyperlinks to transracial cookbook chapters well, Rachel takes the California role, doles it out to Kylie Jenner who’s patenting her own stripper pole cast in that refashioned remake of that movie, (what?) Friday, G-Eazy’s playing Cube’s part while Felicia’s gone Miley well, prefer this next digression avoids addiction to media res, but I began my story in the middle and auto-didacted off a ledge lyrics cliffhang at behest of some of my racialized appearance, and I’ve dredged with Mr. Jones, muckraking trash inside my River Spirit, yeah.
4.
[Chorus One] yeah, I ain’t never been this potent, quantifying my involvement for a rap quotient, long division, undue oceans, carry decimals in that love potion, number 9 for secondary motions (check) [Verse One] check the hand wave for the papal states, electrified clown car, narcoleptic congressional jakes fallate them stakes, masturbate with what international relates. I’ve watched the news, ate Joad’s grapes, paroled with parlayed, harangued greats, whose P.R. funds, yeah they ran out, and that pay for opinion biz, suddenly a tap out. count to ten, tap on that mat, suddenly that yogic flat in the hip part of town ain’t where that ass at, hit it just like that [Chorus One] [Chorus Two] I push my ears to the seers, translate my senses here I push my ears to the seers, translate my senses here I push my ears to the seers, translate my senses here I push my ears to the seers, translate my senses here [Chorus One] [Verse Two] check that hand wave in the figure 8’s traced on that styrofoam in the heap of waste, decaying half-life ideas race track stars incumbent with that ham for face elected by a partisan majority place. and I’ve seen my mind gerrymandered in the process of process, over, stood, waiting patient for that end to signal a logic, endgame raids they took me piece by piece, allotted me a wallet, and a stipend for every time I mentioned I’m finishing college. but then I closed my eyes, ensnared in the senses of my lies, omission of my self from all these letters exorcised. yeah I’ve never been this potent while the eyes have been this dry. yeah I’ve never been that potent, utilized so many “I”s [Chorus Two]
5.
undermining overthinking all the time you know it’s through (you know it) lenses bifocal bifurcated yours who is signed true (yo, we signed true). email game on fleek dependency for decorum rule (for decorum), was finna complete my sentence, fragments they will have to do (they will have to). application not submitted, rejection in time is due (it’s due). haven’t updated resume or worked in a year or two (in a year or two). Linkedin profile twice a day notifies me of openings too (they got openings?), glaze of the eyes, hover the color, of socialized media blue. thousand likes, fickle social proof (with the social proof); facebook algorithm, indie rap truth. mofucka I was Jesus of Los Feliz before the sun gave you my noose, was in my Black Temple collecting Illidan’s loot. 360 flips and hot cheeto fry chips, skin tone comp corner grill, and the park echoed across the way, coming college grad culture fill. raised them pitchforks before the move to Hollywood and Leimert away from vegan breadcrumbs, and non-fat free white guilt trip rule of thumb. performativity of onion bagels along 125th, acclimatizing yiddish politics at upper west side dinner party trysts. hair became becoming artifact intact with tact, outstretched pallid fingers desiring to touch that “safe black.” (don’t touch it, don’t touch it, naw, naw) birthing them same nervous poems midnight oil turned to rap (yeah we turned to rap), gave way to conjunctive musings of possibilities following that, outrage made introspection sans social media blast, searching for the face to match upon the Google gene pool map (Google gene) ’til I returned home and saw that: undermining overthinking all the time you know it’s through (you know it) lenses bifocal bifurcated yours who is signed true (yo we signed true). email game on fleek dependency for decorum rule (for decorum), finna complete my sentence, fragments they will have to do (they will have to).
6.
[Chorus] bottle me in flasks made by kilns of blue skies, alloyed metal mixed with ashes, bridges burnt by eyes, cyclops mule, disparate tool, the foil of aluminum demons screaming macbook titanium in darkest population’s organ, break-beating sun navy yard gun shut down at a Cruz-in’ rhythm, and then some [Verse One] jewelry tree fruit strangely with crystal clear flasks, supremacist agribusiness cosigned to a topaz contract, subsidized inelastic, supply rate of Herman Cain’s hood pass purchased my Black Body Mass Index, inverted the course crash. 101, tire blown, of the loud, with frequency thrown, bent off the guilt-based miscegenation in my family album, as the middle of Malcolm in the middle of a window holding a rifle and talcum, caked my ass white to be privy to certain outcomes, private mouthers got my soft curls on their tongues, cotton lipped gin and tonic as up-votes and like-thumbs, a TED talk on Tumblr kids profiting from complexion, degrees of ambivalence striking that mitochondria. aggressively, ethnically ambiguous, academically rigorous, study me times, limitless, taxonomy your perennial bucket list. well notate it, jot me down, your contrived, prefixed pronouns, speaking me into existence, try to bifurcate my sound. fuck it. [Chorus] [Verse Two] (warming down the instrument, pen, lit, matched fabrics; faberge atlas cracked at the mast’s lattice) work, work, put in work. peon, but the word’s pay dirt (crafted for abstract assholes with preferences for the earth) grounded underground sound camps pitching tent fortresses at the speed limit off-ramps, acumen of a pseudo-gramps granted plus a whopper malt flask (blast, my plans in the trash) assonance to smash together atom ants, subscribed to subterranean travel agents, no scope, crouch to avoid radar and a plastic black acronym yoke (the rope around the spokes of a CEO dope groped taut only to keep him afloat) Published quote: that masked vigilante elopes post-print, reflecting on his namesake, the modest, induced chagrin (plume fountain pen, been circulating them trade winds, astrolabe’s that bookmark ’til the drift translates his end) fuck it [Chorus] [Verse Three] shitting in the bathroom on behalf of bad cabbage, savage asterisk list, average, means multiply the corn, flake, ranges, domain of border equations on the porcelain flushing hydro-gentrification, stain streak racing, pant leg aviating, (vegan gas station, free trade diesel) dial lather for a preview, Sunbelt exit, congressman in situ
7.
hydrophile mutants, may your warm sands lead you to roads and insurance claims the desert took me in, yeah I was swallowed by the landless finna bury my chest in dunes of unmarked desert, street view to pass along, under mine and over pleasure. face was tanned leather while the pretext was the weather, the whirls of cyclones disassembled me better. lacking water, last straw, stripped camel’s back and law, sweated over cold steel while hands gripped, raw. sun beat down; I felt the sound. distance to the spring felt profound. collated my palms with the distance. traded last leaf of hibiscus for the passage out of camp, under darkness, cover, listless ain’t trying life with them bandits, for when she left that night, yeah I was stranded my coffer vacated to be just a shell of what she had branded: skin was raised, sensitive to light, burnt to the touch for a fortnight, keloid kept the 20/20 hindsight, skipped the seance in the canyon for what just might headlong toward horizons, the cracked glass, perfect timing, read the hands. my sweat swallowed the dust, tallied captain’s log, and I surveyed the land This excess nightfall strikes me as forces beyond my control brandishing their egos: I am not afraid, never have I been so felt a brooding presence and so I sped forth. by the sky format, stars, I supposed north the blowing, rising earth had consumed my torch, but darkness had always been my sport against the wind held on, trudged through dunes to where I felt no map would chart from. and at point I dug myself deep, closed my eyes until I felt the heat.
8.
post-mortem shucking, pre-natal jiving, lifetime networks got me in a place of coinciding my noose been lying, résumé been hanging me from the wire, the tap been dancing as the blood percentage is for hire the sale of death man who was freighted out of context, they took the staff of life and hired faculty for progress posthumous albeit, board of directors gave them seals, diversity initiatives to reinvent wheels, 360 degrees for appeals, carting them phrenological frills and petting zoo arrangements for negroid follicle party favors, off-shore account deals fortune 500 fetus, casket inlaid with white jesus, pyre sponsored by adidas, undertaken with a treatise, scribed for reasons to say needless, estate executor regards my colored view of reason as—
9.
freudian slip on black ice, in a state north, hit the doctrine through the pipe, was offered opportunities presenting neutral elements, preferred that corner taco bell where spirits took residence tape shut the attic tape shut the attic tape shut the attic broke mind, plastic innocuous, free form wisps of a bottle in which collective lips buss hallowed breaths, indents on flesh. bouquet of tourniquets, vase for coffee table novels, warped folds, glued spines, watershed brothels, free apostles, discounted suppers, liquidation coasters between estranged brothers tape shut the attic tape shut the attic tape shut the attic broke mind, fabric psychology half-opened on top shelf, warning label liable to socialized health aluminum, half-covered rye, bisected pastrami melt, background check of clustered dishes, sink, whole (body) to the belt- marked neck, face parades facades, shades intersect when head’s drooped in dialogue tape shut the attic tape shut the attic tape shut the attic woke mind, static

about

full lyrics: genius.com/albums/Rhys-langston/Aggressively-ethnically-ambiguous

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This is race as form and content; trap music and beat poetry; audio-autobiography and postcolonial, rap-induced method acting.  This is taking sounds associated with blind hedonism and channeling them to heed cautions regarding the coming, well-educated, well-mannered, and financially solvent apocalypse.  The songs are debates over the possibilities of conscious consumerism as one milly rocks to heavy bass with regrets of using underwhelming pay stubs to buy bottle service; theses on racial embodiment and cultural expressionism framed in post-Migos rap cadences; full ladles of dark and abstract mind-soup poured over a king-sized bed of cinema-worthy impressionism.
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credits

released September 1, 2017

Photo by Parker Day (parkerdayphotography.com)
Design by Elyn Kazarian (elynkazarian.com)

tracks 1,6,8 produced by Rhys Langston
tracks 2,3,5,9 produced by MVNTRA
track 4 produced by MVNTRA and MVCROSS PLVS
track 7 produced by MVNTRA and Rhys Langston

mixed by Kenny Segal
mastered by Daddy Kev

a Black Market Poetry Production

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Rhys Langston Los Angeles, California

From smoked salmon to freshwater microphones.

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