WIKI Schallplatten & CDs

Review: Wiki is Patrick Morales, who came up as one third of NYC hip-hop crew Ratking before dropping the solo mixtape Lil' Me and his debut album No Mountains In Manhattan on XL in 2017. Now he's back with his third album Half God, and he's going deep on the experience of growing up in New York and how it's shaped him as a person. His relentless flow of poetic lyricism is delivered in stark terms, backed up by Navy Blue's production throughout. Shy of typical beats and breaks, this is a more musical, flowing kind of rap which hits with nostalgia and sentimentality to match the hard-bitten street-level perspective Wiki invites us into.

Review: Wiki's new album, 14K Figaro, arrives after a slew of collaborative projects with the likes of The Alchemist and MIKE, Navy Blue, Subjxct5, and NAH. The album is produced entirely by Tony Seltzer, a longtime collaborator who helped soundtrack his earliest efforts - including No Mountains in Manhattan, his 2017 debut album for XL Recordings, and Oofie, its potent 2019 follow-up. Guest features include the World's Fair MC Remy Banks, the Bruiser Brigade spitter Zelooperz, and the prolific D.C. native WifiGawd. A curveball in relation to his past projects, the native New York opts for a clean sound, adding in pepperings of drill and net rap - with samply stutters abounding on lackadaisical favourites like 'RL' - yet retaining the streetwise, grilled enfant terrible's omnipresent rawness.