Fly Anakin
Fly Anakin Carves His Own Lane on Frank
Emerging as one of 11 members of a hip-hop collective in his native Richmond, Virginia, collaboration has always been central to rapper-producer Fly Anakin’s work. Now, with the release of his solo debut album, he showcases the talents that brought the spotlight on him and his local scene. Like Danny Brown’s Bruiser Brigade, Mutant Academy is a scrappy, underground outfit that takes its name from an X-Men video game. Both groups are also intensely local, and committed to nurturing a unique sound for their city. The collective battles for success in a state that, despite claiming legendary hitmakers like Timbaland, Pusha T, Missy Elliot, and Pharrell Williams, has remained generally overlooked as a bed of talent between Washington, D.C. and Atlanta. A producer-heavy unit, Mutant Academy has...
Pink Siifu & Fly Anakin Showcase a Cipher of Rising Talent on $mokebreak EP
$mokebreak EP, the second project of hip-hop duo Pink Siifu & Fly Anakin, trades the rich worldbuilding of their first album for a fast-paced exhibition of their underground styles. On their debut, FlySiifu’s, the entrancing back-and-forth of emcee Fly Anakin’s earnest flows and rapper-singer Pink Siifu’s slick-talk was fictionalized as the efforts of blunted employees in the back of a Next Friday-esque record store. Where the album built this concept across its many skits, $mokebreak EP holds it as a loose premise; the duo are work-shirt-clad among crates and shelves on the EP’s cover, but mentions of the record store are fewer and less distinct than the mock voicemails of “Black Bitches Matter Hoe” and “[email protected]” Where the album’s features were marked by and divided amo...
Blue Chips: May 2020 in New Hip Hop
Blue Chips is a monthly rap column that doubles as a scouting report. Each month, SPIN selects a new starting five, a group of rappers who could be Rookie of the Year candidates turned Hall-of-Famers or forgettable flashes in the pan. Only the passing seasons (and the number of streams) will tell. To read previous columns, click here. Acito – “Clutchin & Mobbin” [embedded content] Stockton doesn’t have a history of nationally-recognized rappers, but local talent may have been forever diverted or cut down. As of 2019, the Northern California city had roughly 30 active gangs and a rising rate of gun-related homicides. The root causes are the same as they’ve always been in similarly afflicted cities: decades of poverty, cyclical violence, institutional neglect w/r/t education, childcare, ...
