Drastic measures must be taken to ensure that the word hip in hip-hop remains legit and to avoid being dubbed unhip-hop. Unfortunately, due to the fact America is still obsessed with scaring the shit out of their dimwitted Christian grandmothers who, as children, had been so frightened by black people they often had nightmares about Buckwheat breaking into their homes and raping them. And now, just hearing any album featuring a Negro using profanity and talking about puttin’ a cap somebody’s ass, these parents will swear their child is possessed by the demon if he/she is listening to this. As a result, rap music can be loaded with clichés about the hood and can be recorded over “the tape that has the bass” and still bring in the easy money. Who wouldn’t easy cash or be considered the next Anti-Christ?

Hailing from Iceland, Ghostigital has gone to extreme measures into taking an entirely new direction for not only hip-hop, but music entirely. Consisting of ex-Sugarcube Einar Örn on vocals, multi-instrumentalist Curver, and a wide range of guests ranging from Dälek to The Fall’s Mark E. Smith, In Cod We Trust is perhaps the most experimental, uncompromising, noisiest, most insane form of music ever recorded.

While keeping hip-hop as its base for vocal structure, musically the album features elements of extreme noise, free-jazz/fusion, electronics, IDM, and experimental punk/hardcore. Ghostigital sounds nothing at all like any other rap artist that has ever cut an album. Einar Örn has a very distinct quality to him- imagine Curly from The Three Stooges infected with rage rapping with a deep Icelandic accent. Couple those vocals with guests who normally sound like hardcore street rappers and wicked sounds such as thrashing horns (featured on the album’s best song, “Black Sand” w/ Dälek); this is a record that can get under one’s skin. Fuck granny and the subdivision dwellers trying to scare the wig off of her, this record is for adventurous ears only.

Let us now salute a few others who, in these recent times, passed up the easy cash and went to the extreme measures to rap music not only hip, but a legitimate style of great music. Artists like Cannibal Ox, The Roots, Jurassic 5, El-P, MF Doom, Quasimoto, Dälek, Dizzee Rascal, and most members of The Wu-Tang Clan have kept rap music great. And may the styles of Ghostigital pave the way for new generations. 9.5/10

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