Things I Like: October 2023
Ralphie Choo, Danny Brown, an Ali book and more recommendations
Welcome to my monthly recommendation newsletter featuring music, books and things I come across online. For more recommendations like this in the future, please consider becoming a paid subscriber.
My album of the year so far is SUPERNOVA by Ralphie Choo. A 24 year old based in Madrid, Ralphie is a genre-agnostic pop provocateur who probably makes his countrywoman Rosalía proud. Dude is a total oddball. There are elements with Frank Ocean-esque pitched vocals and other semi-recognizable bits floating around the mix but that familiarity is cloaked in all manner of strangeness. Ralphie sings, raps and produces the whole affair, which is primarily in Spanish. But the music is so otherworldly as to be beyond language.
This is a record that is more about structure and texture as well as the subversion of expectations. Though not self-consciously outré with regards to its construction, the album features songs sent back and forth over Discord and samples of Choo beatboxing and playing a straw like a flute recorded directly into an iPhone. These are thoroughly contemporary songs with classical underpinnings that speak to Ralphie’s trad music education, but this formalism is never showy. SUPERNOVA has DIY bedroom vibes on a champagne budget.
Highlights: “BULERÍAS DE UN CABALLO MALO,” “WHIPCREAM,” “GATA,” “MÁQUINA CULONA,” “VOYCONTODO,” “SUPERNOVA”
Can’t wait for this new Danny Brown album. He’s so singular and uncompromising in his approach. Never thought I’d hear him over an Alchemist beat but he sounds right at home on “Tantor.” It’s nice to see him getting embraced more broadly as time goes by. Jockstrap has been a group that always seemed like it was right up my alley but never quite hit the mark for me. That is, until now with “Good Girl.” It hits my brain in all the Indie Sleaze receptors.
Olof Dreijer is most well-known as one half of the Knife but his solo production has been on my radar for a bit. I was absolutely bowled over by his remix of “Ti Choung” by Emmanuel Jal and Nyaruach and kept an eye on him afterwards. It’s been nice to see him have one of the best club tracks this year, “Rosa Rugosa,” the title track of his new EP. On songs like that and the standout “Camelia,” the darkness of his work in the Knife is softened by an emphasis on warped, colourful synths and a bouncy rhythm that recalls Dutch bubbling music and South African kwaito without being derivative or appropriative.
Paris Texas are a really exciting rap duo that walks the line between rock and rap in a unique way. Their record from this summer MID AIR has so many amazing moments but “NüWhip” was the standout for me. Over a jittery, pulsating rhythm, they drop some playful bars: “I got some gold and some therapist money / I got some "Now, I'm Republican" money.”
Real Lies are a band from London that really can’t do wrong in my eyes. They’re masters at creating elegiac requiems to the nightworld, simply incredible at capturing in their songs that intangible end of night tension that all ravers are familiar with. “End Credits” with Mall Grab is more of that bleary, romantic club atmosphere that very few artists are capable of properly tapping into.
These songs and more can be found on my playlist, A Better Future: Selections by Cadence Weapon (updated weekly)
I greatly enjoyed reading David Remnick’s King of the World. On the surface, it’s a book about the rise of Muhammad Ali. Under that first layer is a taxonomy of race relations in America analyzing the public response to three different boxers: Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston and Ali. But dig deeper and you’ll find a rich examination of journalism. Remnick gives the origin story of an obscure writer just as much ink as he does a club fighter because he sees them as one and the same.
What I believe he intends to parallel is how athletes and writers are both particularly vulnerable to time; it inevitably marches on without them. What was once the dominant style quickly becomes an anachronism. As the old adage says, “Styles make fights” and we’re made privy to a brawl between Norman Mailer and James Baldwin that is just as fierce as any battle that takes place in the ring.
Remnick has a slinky way about his writing, where he’ll take long detours into unexpected directions. It’s definitely old school feature writing but there’s something very meditative about that style when you’re in the mood for it. He’ll write about an obscure newspaper columnist but in a way that gives you total understanding of why they chose to cover Ali the way that they did. Remnick somehow always sticks the landing, writing with verve and expertly capturing the flavour of what he calls “the sixties phantasmagoria.”
This profile of Martin Scorsese in GQ is fabulous. Zach Baron is one of my favourite magazine writers, he has a real knack for drawing unique insights out of his subjects. We’re brought into Marty’s private world in the twilight of his life, getting to see how his archival mind has made him the artist that he is today. The way he finds influence in paintings, songs and books for his films is a great reminder of the importance of research. His meditations on existence are incredibly poignant. I really felt this part about what it’s like to see friends when you’re older:
“I saw an old friend a few weeks ago here; my God, we’ve known each other since 1970. I hadn’t seen her in years. But by the time she left, we embraced and held onto each other for, like, 10 minutes, not knowing if we would see each other again. But couldn’t say more. But that’s good. It’s narrowed down.”
Really enjoyed this interview with A.R. Kane at
that dropped recently. I became familiar with the group over the last few months and thought, “Where have they been all my life?” I greatly appreciate the stylistic variety of their output across their career. Running the gamut between harsh feedback laden proto-shoegaze to addictively tuneful pop synthcraft, Rudy Tambala discusses what it was like being a rare Black group in the ‘80s UK indie rock scene, lifting the curtain after decades of obscurity.
I’m featured in CBC’s Black Life: Untold Stories episode about Canadian hip-hop called Northern Beats. I was really proud to represent as the only artist from the prairies. Check it out on CBC Gem.
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You can find me updating my playlists or hanging on Twitter and Instagram. You can listen to my music on Spotify, Apple Music and Bandcamp and you can get Cadence Weapon merchandise here. Read my monthly column in Hazlitt. Pick up your copy of Bedroom Rapper here and please rate it on Goodreads.