Nehru Jackets
Das Racist’s wiliest rhymer is also their most caustic joker. On his first solo mixtape, Himanshu snipes at the NYPD (“New York’s spineless”), Whole Foods (“I be at bodegas”) and his own success (“I went from ‘Why bother?’ to ‘Fuck it, yo, I’ll holla for the mighty dolla'”) with a grown-up stoner’s finesse. His soft spot? The ladies: “They smell great/I think about ’em real late/They’re better than steak, or high stakes,” he rhymes on “Womyn.” Lag time is a given at 25 tracks, but Heems’ childhood pal Mike Finito keeps the production entertaining, setting Punjabi vocals and shoegaze satire over 1990s boom-bap, taking hip-hop nostalgia around the world and back.
Listen to Himanshu’s “Womyn”:
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