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1.
[Verse 1: Defcee] I’m not easy to love...it’s just rare that I’m hated. My name is mud, but that’s only the translation. Skated circles around the holes drilled in the ice By middle-aged men on the hunt for children to fight. brilliant advice: earn the affirmation rather than expectin it, Rappers cryin for mentions like we’re parents who neglected em. The latter’s a legitimate issue to address, And the former’s a matter of being insignificant in the press. Was depressed for the same reasons...then I made twenty-five, Killed my self-saboteur, and the rest of me came alive. Pride or integrity--pick one, and stick with it. The time comes, you could sacrifice either in triplicate. This isn’t “Takeover” or “Ether,” fam--it’s different. Wanted to root em on they only found joy in division. Doubt crawled away, I barricaded in the kitchen. No respect in the mix, the two of us never blended. [HOOK (x2): Defcee] Molded something magic outta clay. Hit ten thousand hours, not a rapper-of-the-day, Better than they’d imagined. It’s got em sad and amazed. I’m just masterin the craft, they don’t even gotta stay [Verse 2: Henry Canyons] Walked around the block while the clay dried: readjusting expectations takes time. Tried to shake it off--oh, no “Hey Ya.” Day jobs. Fake sob stories. Reevaluations leaping outta faith and feeding figments of imagination, weighin possibilities. You kiddin? It’s triple distilled, gettin my fill. If I didn’t share, it doesn’t mean I didn’t feel it. Otherwise, how will they know? No need to advertise my healing. Picklin my wounds. Big Apple. Side of grind. Pink peppercorns better bitin bigger outta life. Crisp to the touch. Tart to the taste. This business is getting caught, and making art along the way. Walking round the block, spinnin dreidels made of clay. Gimme gimel, sick of fittin in the middle of the frame. Is it the same? This isn’t a riddle. Lookin in the mirror Coming of age. It’s humbling, summoning the day. [HOOK (x2)]
2.
[Verse 1: Convertible Ashley] [Verse 2: Joshua Virtue] [Verse 3: Freddie Old Soul] [Verse 4: Defcee] I nodded off and tore the craft apart-- more brilliant while unconscious than any other rapper is on an Adderall. Valedictorian of the Pretty Toney School of Language Arts, Magna Stark. Faster blade hack away half your squad. Computer wizardry. What I compose on Macintosh is Debussy with a symphony. Wrote the manuscript and crashed across the road, carried on through a blizzard of misery. Fans throwing fire on my literature for the symmetry. Clinically obsessive about reflective imperfections. Bizarro Narcissus--fell away from the water in self-protection. Twelve dimensions from my sober body, still stay in the fold like yogi yoni. Verses karma sutra, know you own a copy. Soma popping, coping with how boring dystopia became. Striking oil in the page, cloning the slope of the veins. Before they could lower the cage, we threw our mankind off of it. Undertakers watch in mock horror at the consequence.
3.
Compassion 03:24
A pox on our house. Rot in the mouth got our teeth lookin like a block in the South. Keepin watch and the count--knuckleheaded math: “One for us, two for you,” underfed and mad. You’re pumpin lead or gas, and this page smells like gunpowder while this country’s biggest fuel source is dunce power. Hungry for Republican functions to crush the fun outta, cuz my taxes pay your wages--ain’t no lunch hours! Cupboard layin bare, they’re eatin carrot cake and ice cream. Tried to tear away our eyes as parents played with pipe dreams. Lady Justice dietin on Perrier and light beams, while roads to Hell are paved with contaminated crime scenes. Tried to catch us slippin like we’re Diddy on the crotch rocket. Threw money at the problem, but it landed in the cops’ pockets. Phone full of dope. Now our hands are just pop sockets. Past stays the present and the future...we are not prophets. [HOOK (x2)] ...cuz if they gave a fuck, then they’d act like it! If they gave a fuck, then they’d act like it! Why we always gotta beg for money from a printing press? Different dresses, same devils revelin in eviction threats. Whole generations in a house made of gingerbread. Brains on drugs: all these classes packed with pickled eggs. Deepfaked dreamscapes, imaginations freebased. Still starved for all the safe spaces that these creeps ate. Emcees on the cheese chase--bad backs, feet ache, got us rollin out another tape in case the lease breaks. Purchasin escapes from our personal faith bubbles, To alternate universe versions of selves that the fates juggles. Faint muscles in long arms pushin away struggle. Hate stays hustlin harder than love, so my pace doubled. Open the hyperlinks: read em and weep-- preseason victory parades leadin their teams to a sweep. Guess it’s nothing new to me. Just look at kindness and cruelty-- those who deserve em the most receive em the least. [HOOK (x2)]
4.
[Verse 1: Defcee] Backstreet boy: dust on the Tim toes. Gripping on ya favorite old widow by the hipbone. Condolences for the loss of your kinfolk. Showed up to the funeral in flip-flops and gym clothes Like, “I’m sorry for your gain.” Wring rainwater from your pain. Slang like a fat cap marker on the grave. Last words to the family of the dead: “Your daughter was a babe.” Shish kebab your biggest flaw and rip it off your waist. If I like the dish ya ordered, lick it off your plate. Kill and rob, or skim the cost, then tickle torture safes. Fingers that could pick apart a brick-and-mortar face. No one asks how I made the mask. The poison’s in your favorite glass. The antidote I’ma save for last. Keep your smile in a paper bag. [HOOK: Defcee (x2)] Cat gon eat if the mouse gon grin Lost your shirt? Then come out your skin. Lost your life? Then we’ll drown your kin. All bets off if the house don’t win. [Verse 2: Alaska] [HOOK (x2)] [Defcee] All bets off if the house don't win...all bets off if the house don't win... [Beat 2] [Verse 3: Defcee] Hearts of gold in a war chest. Pulse pumpin out a polar vortex. Self-care’s like a hymn for the tonedeaf. Li sten from the inside. It howls at my doorstep Freddie Krueger claws for the prayer hands. The world’s smallest violinist in an air band. Blood on the smock wave hi to the neighbors. Shere Khan smile for a stranger, hidin in the wild with a razor Slidin through your savior Nerves stretched tighter than a taper. Shreddin paper tigers and daisy chains. David Blainin your cake for change. Grew a beard swimmin in a vault I drink your milkshake, your beer, and your malt. Money on my minefield. Gotcha thinkin you can waste it like time, still Laughin to, at, and from the bank. Sticky fingers at the cookout--run your plate. [HOOK: Defcee (x4)]
5.
[Verse 1: Curly Castro] [HOOK: Defcee (x2)] Crazy’s doing the same thing expecting different shit to happen. seeing the same thing expecting different shit to happen. hearing the same thing expecting different shit to happen. You did the same thing? I can’t believe that shit happened. [Verse 2: Defcee] King of clubs. Heart of diamonds. Prince of thieves. Robbed his cousin with the pistol Mille packed on Christmas Eve Hennessy and cocaine made him move like liquid steam. Snap bands off the cuff like Reggie Miller missin threes. Turn the corner into a Madison Square show where the DJ, hype man, and audience are scarecrows. Two miles an hour so everybody see you and wonder how you fell asleep and still drove the vehicle. Freddy outlived Curtis Mayfield. Pusher man had HDTV in Stateville and steak meals. Only goodfellas go to jail with they own plates still. What the streets leave alive, the cage kills. He’s your favorite writer’s favorite rapper’s favorite movie character. Thinks he gon come home to parade floats and police barriers. Hope in fifty years, he can still use his old cell phone carrier. [HOOK: Defcee (x2)]
6.
Snares 03:46
They really had us thinking it was dog-eat-dog. Naw: greed, hatred, and the law eat all. Cleanin well-oiled machines with greased palms, They're only gonna catch you they seein you cheat wrong. Different day, same plague. EBKs, AKs, rigid aim, gray planes on the street leakin shades of intelligence and rage. Beating feet, raising cain. Pictures over captions sayin, “It shouldn’t be” next to names, and a pair of dates before and after a hyphen, holdin a number smaller than twenty-five inside it. Pilates in high places greet messiahs with violence, and when we’re educated, we just whine like, “I’m tryin.” Never learn from the fortunes in our palms under blood stains, sayin “We’ll get there one day,” never leavin the runway. The difference between wisdom and fear is a tucked chain. Look at the sadomasochistic games Lady Luck plays, [HOOK] They’re loadin the dice, pretend you’re in debt when they owe you their life Look what they say, look what they write, Look how they lie disrespectin their stripes Look how they act, look at the facts: Feds will keep watch with their hand on the trap. you lookin out from inside of your pack Remember we gotta stop letting em back. Tony Accardo spent a night in a holding cell for a century of crime, while they force Meech and the chiefs to do every second of their time. Real talk, they let Capone slide for a minute, until he was past his prime, and his mind syphilitic Toxins breaking filing cabinets down to boxes. Politicians start a riot, then pretend that they’re a hostage. Talk this rah-rah shit, then dive to the side when their number one fans turn their offices to moshpits. Chickens home to roost, but big business owns the coops, totin Tonton Macoute. Facebook and Google recruit voting booth rubber stamps on the status quo we’re livin in. Respect is just the minimum. The debt is ad infinitum. White supremacy’s an illness we’ve passed onto children, and still refuse to shield em with masks. Powers move the pieces as we fight to a stalemate. It’s cold at the bottom and there’s ice on the staircase. [HOOK] We gotta stop lettin em back...we gotta stop lettin em back...
7.
A bitter flavor on the tongue. Another death, another razor in the lungs. Climbin up the ranks with tissue paper on the rungs. Damn...thought I’d finally turn the tables til they spun. Cash rent fed to the liquor store register. Workin in the system, made my living off predators. Worst thing about my job was it existed. It should never take poems to save kids in a prison. Two therapists: Jack and Jim. Ask em for advice, take a nap, and then ask again. They can’t gimme what I’m lookin for, I’ll ask the Hen. Takin a hundred pounds of muscle to crack a grin. Snappin out a nightmare, smackin wind. Radiator quiet, but the windows cacklin. I featured at open mics full of these rapper kids. Now I’m back at the beginning while they’re stackin ends. HOOK (x2): ...as each day runs into the next. I was strugglin for more, and I was hustlin for less. Slender little digits huddled in a check. Still kept a brave face buttoned to the neck. Millennial American splendor: the only inheritance from my grandparents was records. Text threads with my ex held the stench of embarrassing effort. Twenty-four goin on forty and my skin was wearin the weather. Hate bad for the face: breakin out after congratulating my homies with laughter and cake. They didn’t trust the smile, so they looked me in the eye, saw a little joy, jealousy pushing it aside. From a hug to a handshake, and gettin snubbed is a mandate, with no bluff in my fam’s face. Blood thicker than water. Tension thicker than both. Needed to vent bout it all. That’s when I missed em the most. Friends! How many of us have em blocked? A heavy hammer smashed the bond to rags and rocks. Chatterbox in the shadows punchin my pride to dust. Blood ran from my arm waitin to dap a Midas up. HOOK (x2)
8.
Commute 02:42
Hit the train like the Old West. Air smellin like phone sex. Sunrise eyes swimmin with gold flecks. Lately, the Lord’s given less than He’s taken, cuz my life’s a movie, and all He does is two-take it. Closet skeletons tomb raided. Ripped a few stages-- double bass how I kept the room shakin. Coffee-flavored medicine caving my temples in. The train before dawn--it’s me and the living dead again. Green Line George Romero, in front of someone wrapped up in long sleep under a tall T from Ecko. Hopin everything that glittered wasn’t art deco. Soundtrack of my life: the fat lady’s falsetto. The harshed mellows in the bars echo, the world’s smallest violin sounded like sharp cellos. I’ve lost so much, and all I’ve got are these mementos. I’ll take what I can get, though. HOOK 1: Thinkin of Brother Mike, and I miss him. Thinkin of Hunter Coe, and I miss him. Thinkin of my great uncle, and I miss him. Thinkin of Andrew, and I miss him. Thinkin of Nakila, John, and Gyron, Man, I miss em. I miss em. Vault under the chest plate. I shake my head and the webs break. Took the first shot and sent my regrets late. A dollar shorter--I’m counter height. My manner was mild as thunder when it struck the gut of a soundless night. Wild I’m around to write about a life escaped from, when my friends threw shade, and I ate some. If it took away shame, I’d repay em in limbs, and spend twenty percent of what I make on my sins. The number on my check wasn’t matchin my bills, so I shoplifted rolls, sold plasma and pills. Pendulum swung amok between dramatic and chill. Pursuin happiness and only found it crackin a seal. ...Hand on the wheel somewhere off Central. The verse steered itself. The instrumental’s the vessel. I’ve lost so much, and all I’ve got are these mementos. I’ll take what I can get, though. HOOK 2: Thinkin of Corvus, and I miss him. Thinkin of Mr. Millet, and I miss him. Thinkin of Walt, and I miss him. Thinkin of Dylan, and I miss him. Thinkin of my cousin Conar, and man, I miss him. I miss em.
9.
Time Off 03:14
Miles Davis on the train keepin me calm, tellin me there isn't such a thing as a lost cause. Today, I teach my students how to count bars, but it's hard to tell kids to freestyle in a room full of armed guards. I get kinda blue when my check's late, but their kinda blue's a sweatsuit with county numbers on the breastplate. I’m not trying to save anybody. That’s not the point. I'm trying to convince somebody it's worth it to save their voice. But by their count, they’re counted out by everybody: Their mom or the system, their religion, and a jury that isn't of their peers. Given years for some kid shit. Digits on their wrist and permission they gotta ask to take a piss with. I'm headed home from work trying not to sob, but this is a drought an ocean of saltwater couldn't solve. I know nine-to-five is how you survive, but swear to God if I survive my nine-to-five, I'll never work another job. I just got to work, and I already wanna go home. I just got to work, and I already wanna go home. I just got to work, and I already wanna go home. I just got to work, and I already wanna go home. Panic attacks on my morning commute. Paycheck printed with ink strained from poisonous fruit. State dropped the needle on that vicious cycle, And we taught all the kids who caught the loop--caught the loop--caught the loop--caught the loop Image in my head: off white iron and orange suits. Nope. Just youth crammed into a prosecutor’s garbage chutes. Dickens reboot--at the front of the class pourin soup. Want interviews? Their tattoos will report the war for you. Kids cop pleas, and don’t know what they’ll get back, Or when they’ll get back. They might come home to jeptacks. Saw a boy kicked out of class for lookin up gang lit, so he wouldn’t be a neutron when he started his downstate bid. Wanted to ask how the teacher learned to be so cold. Tried as an adult? I don’t care if they write me no poems. At supermarkets memorizing prices for pay-as-you-go phones. In my nightmares, I still hear, “I just wanna go home...I just wanna go home...I just wanna go home...I just wanna go home…”
10.
[Verse 1: Defcee] Them work songs cops whistle to Got a different tune when they flex Politicians on witches’ brooms In front of middle schools in a vest. The War on Drugs been expired If the fix you move is Rx While the SWATs like, “WE DON’T GET TIRED” As they’re kickin you in the chest. Entrapment the plot: ten racks in a drop. Deck stacked in a box. Stepback with the shot. Chef’s hat and a wok. Legs latched to a lock. Public defender like, “You wanted to gamble With your life? Well, you had a better chance throwin headcracks on the block.” Shortcut crime scenes to blind pleas. Lady Justice need Visine. System snuck you in the last round. “Good night, Irene!” That train always cry steam. In the courtroom, eyes stream. Judge teachin us all what time means. It’s the same song, different rhyme scheme. [Verse 2: PremRock] [Verse 3: billy woods] [Verse 4: E L U C I D]
11.
Fifty 02:36
Let my city remember me like I lived there My slang fit ears like a splinter, so when I speak I watch my mama’s skin tear. Kick a rhyme, and it moves like winter air. My thinnest years were spent in suits that didn't fit me, scared of dyin like my friends or family or teachers or students. Grim Reaper might not touch you yet, but he’s mentally abusive. My eyes were ruins. I cried and shook my shoulders through it. My girl rubbed the back of my neck--mourning's what I'm used to overdoin. Smoke polluting my living room, lit a fuse, and the hallway flooded with litter fumes. Letter from my superintendent. She’s tellin me to quit the booze. I hope my shouting wasn't the music my neighbors listened to. Sticky Fingaz in my headphones. My notebook a dead zone. In high school I was writing "this is the end" poems on endless loop, brain spinning like the Forgiatos of an upended coupe. Talk is cheap unless you’re tellin expensive truths. Stories left in loops and bunny ears. I was dumping squares on my tennis shoes, letting loose, cutting clean, touching dreams that disintegrated in my hands before I could trust them things, When rain hits the curb right, you can hear the gutter sing. Submachine under my chest. Blood on my neck. I did so little for money and so much for respect. My dough wasn't even crawling when I tried to run up a check so I take my Ls graciously when I play the dozens with debt. So broke I hurt in places I didn't think hunger'd infect Never more than the sum of my flesh. Knuckles indented punching a message into the sun til it sets. I coulda been a drunk. For all intents and purposes, I was--and a bet on who I coulda been was the under, but my lady loved me instead. The homies loved me to death. My family loved me in spite of how little I saw them and how much I repressed. Humming through air--my voice is soundin like it's under a jet. Messiah gave me the beat, and I gave him my memoirs, magnums of rosé, a Monet, and a Renoir though I'm feelin more Magritte or Bearden: put an image where it shouldn't be, or pull from everything to build a collage of spirits. And when the metaphors don’t work, all that’s left is the truth. R.I.P. to the rillos I dropped to their deaths on a stoop. Shoutout the Delfonics songs I drank my medicine to Five years ago, my blood was two-hundred-seventy proof A student died--it was three-eighty. A friend died--four fifty. A friend died--five hundred. A friend died--six-sixty My uncle died--seven-hundred. A student died--eight-thirty A friend died--nine-hundred. A teacher died--nine-twenty. A teacher died--nine-eighty… and then my uncle died...and then a student died… And then my cousin died…
12.
I have no epiphanies for you, nothing poetic or prettier for you, nothing to hide in a simile or award-winning aesthetic symmetry for you. Tell a kid, “This authority’s comin from havin to live it or witness it for you.” and some of em say to me, “Look, Mr. Levin, twenty other teachers did this before you.” Huh...damn...that’s always when I take a moment to breathe, Remember we haven’t been treatin these children as more than a quota of needs or usin em to grow our reputation, and then taking the credit for sowing the seeds. deaf to those pleas, nothing can drag all the air out the room quite like hope when it leaves. Rollin up sleeves, writin these songs with a scalpel from thorax to groin, Stuck in the talk bout the talk, until we off fishing for beef just to throw back the point. Ironic how they tried to keep themselves together by burnin they bones after joints. Ironic I felt so much happier back when I considered Prozac a choice. Anger was like an attack dog, didn’t let go once it latched on. If you start strippin the violence out of these rhymes, what’s left is a sad song. My life in the deck--started prayin the dealer had ran outta bad cards. At my happiest furious, backwards, unworthy, and writin the words in these raps wrong. [HOOK] Paid my dues, and I still came back to feed the meter. I don’t got the answers. I don’t need em, either. even If I had em, I wouldn’t believe em, neither. I don’t got the answers. I don’t need em, either. Flattened knuckles on these tracks until they cracked and buckled, eyes Jekyll wide finding out that Hyde was fashioned from you. First cut went past the muscle, in your head, the cannons rumbled, you relaxed, actin humble, tunnel vision a plasma puzzle. Writin bars, and flexed your posture, pencil scratchin down your life Tired arms were treadin water, then you practiced drowning twice. Flinched, then winced, and tried to wash those butcher’s hands of power’s price. Used defensive self-reflection in the mirror, counting Christs. Snappin vinyl outta spite the only time you pressed a record. Extended helping hands, knew your reach could either be stretched or severed. Desperate times, desperate measures, some of you packed blades sharp enough to carve a twenty-four-karat heart out the chest of pressure. Untamed as affection when your love language is vengeance, Before violence can lay its hands upon the front page, it’s kinetic. Therapy or surgery, either way you bout to open up, or that one way toward the exit--but it’s blocked by what you won’t confront.
13.
[HOOK] This is the Institute of Living. Ribcage as a prison. Smaller than my faith. Larger than my religion. This is the Institute of Living. Paper as a prism. A choir of medicine humming off-key in my system. This is the Institute of Living. Giving up on what I’m missing. A small difference between what I’ve saved and what I’m killing. This is the Institute of Living. Got a clean bill of health, and the most dangerous people tellin me I’m a danger to myself. Attended church in the corner of a pool hall. Words in my memoir from someone else’s blues song. Coulda bounced off of that hard white like a cueball. Pocketful of bass...still getting the groove wrong. I’m the distance from wax-winged to crash-landed. Talk spill like gunpowder out of a cracked cannon. In a folding chair, throwing my head back, laughing, watching columns snap round the bodies of collapsed Samsons. Pills in a Dixie cup, spill em into my throat dry. Imagination real as fuck. I can’t see its coastline. Break it down to fix it up. Paint the world and watch the coat shine. Dressed like a million bucks. The state paid for this bowtie. It match hospital gowns how bowler hats fit elbows. My own Prince Charming. Adjust glass slippers with velcro. Tongue full of spikes. My mind is a railroad. Lie and tell my mother I miss her in all my mail home. [HOOK]
14.
Muscle 02:44
“It’s poison in that apple,” my mirror sighed to me. Student found my SoundCloud. Said he was gettin high to me. At age seventeen, it woulda seemed so fly to me, but I’m grown and told him, “No, you really shoulda lied to me.” Used to force the issue. Now it slides to me. Knew a lot of Toilet Tishas ‘fore my sisters played Aquemini to me. Remember Ricky and Ced would drive to me. Ricky said, “The cops was Superman punchin Ced up out his ride” to me. Nothing holy in the story’s other side to me. Light hit my homies’ eyes. It turned em blind to me. Why fame has always tasted like a sour lime to me. Even when I’m teachin, my brain is pagin phrases and rhymes to me. Tired of who shruggin and mutterin, “I tried” to me, Arms around the huddle, and frontin like they won’t glide from me. My lady said, “If you’re stressed, you can cry to me.” Told her, “Nah,” cuz it was too much pride to me, so HOOK (x2): I’ll work this out. I might tear a muscle What I’m hurt about? I’ll answer if I trust you. I still might be lyin’ cuz you’re just gonna ask if you can help but I’m a carry it myself. Carry-carry it myself. The weight’s just a plate, and the food isn’t new. Bad days are a cake, slicing smooth through the blues, With my shoes on the coffee table, draggin all the dirt. At my best, laughin off the worst. Grabbin on my shirt. Got a handle on this baggage, keep it rollin in my wake, Any low is like the clothing, I’ma fold it into place. With these stones upon my shoulders. I’ma hold em til they break, If it’s bone or if it’s boulder, I won’t notice til I ache. So my face rock a smile. It’s a style--that’ll change When the season pass away, cuz my ego Faberge. Fragile frames on these rose-tinted lenses. My expressions are confessions. I’m hopin my homies know to hold they questions. Answers off-the-record. Calls rejected as a resume Remember: age has a way of shreddin armor to negligee. Shadowbox a featherweight. My own self-fulfilling prophet, And lately I been feelin led astray, but HOOK (x2)
15.
Post 02:22
Slappin money on the plexiglass. … This lack of “sunny” in the weathercast is funny as an epitaph. Game has elevated--watch it dodgin the propeller’s path, as flocks of different feathers pass the complex sketches bred in brass. ...I’m heading back to life, as mornings blanket drafty nights, thinkin through decision-making, playlist full of bad advice. headphones slippin over hats, elastic on my mask is tight- Er than how DOOM would grab the mic. (Shit is classic, right?) First show post-plague, I’m sending an imposter, the best Def impression gets attendance requested at the Oscars. Monsters pretend “defenseless,” press the desperate for their coffers. ...Now I’m on the first Metra back to work, and I’m bothered. HOOK (x2): I’m tryna keep my eyes on our blessings. We don’t know what’s coming next, we’ll take our joy where we can get it. I’m tryna keep my eyes on our blessings, Wanna help my kid shape this world better than we left it. The star of my baby’s sonogram is their beating heart. so much of me has changed, or been cross-examined, and evened off. If they grow faster than we expect, I hope the ceiling’s soft. Bread crumbs in our path together, just in case they’re feeling lost. Yo...my child’s gonna be better than me, and stronger than resentment, tension, envy, or greed. Won’t have to protect their mental health with Henny and weed, And about to have aunts and uncles for anything that they need. Indeed...it’s no erasing this smile. Want something different out this face, then it’ll take me a while. Staring into the distance, faithful and proud, and thank God they got their mom to raise em with style. HOOK (x2)

about

Trapdoor is a collaboration between Chicago rapper Defcee and longtime Backwoodz affiliate Messiah Musik. In some ways, Trapdoor is a pairing of two artists whose career arcs are very different, but are similarly on the verge of new horizons. Defcee has been a fixture in his city’s underground scene for a long time, but over the past couple years he has been active like never before. He dropped a string of projects before and during the pandemic, culminating in a project with August Fanon—another friend of ours—earlier this year. Meanwhile, Messiah Musik has carefully stacked his resume with placements on critically acclaimed projects including Quelle Chris’ Niggas Is Men (2013), Mach-Hommy’s Pray For Haiti (2021), and damn near every Armand Hammer album in between.

“I sought Messiah out for a whole project because his track record was perfect—I had never heard a song he produced where it wasn’t one of my favorites on the project,” Defcee says. “His work reminds me of what I loved about RZA’s beats when I first discovered Wu Tang— ’Dusty loops, heavy bag drums’ to quote billy woods.”

Defcee has been rapping for fifteen years, but Trapdoor really does feel like his debut album in a way. The writing is sharper, the flows are tighter and it’s all a perfect marriage for Messiah’s signature sound.

“The title hit me when I revisited the music and realized that many of the attitudes expressed within the songs cut to the paradoxical nature of that compound word—how a door is supposed to be a temporary barrier between spaces that can allow for movement at will, and how a trap is designed to keep you stuck where you are,” Defcee explains.

credits

released November 23, 2021

Cover photo and design: Alexander Richter

Mixed and Mastered by Willie Green at The GreenHouse Recording Co.
Assistant Engineer - Tevin Prince

All songs written by Defcee (A. Levin for Son of Hillel (ASCAP)) and Messiah Musik (D. Zunikoff), except where otherwise noted.

All Defcee verses recorded by Defcee at 126 ½ in Oak Park, IL.

Special thank-yous to our daughters, who share the same birthday, and that seems more like kismet than coincidence; to our wives, who encourage us to be the best artists we can possibly be as long as it doesn’t interfere with our fatherly and husbandly duties; to Willie Green and Tevin Prince, for taking a bedroom album and making it sound like it was forged in the same place where they made Thor’s hammer; to woods, Anton, and the team at Backwoodz for supporting this project from its inception in 2014 through its release, whose patience, belief, and investment in what we were doing kept the music from dying on the vine and allowed it to bloom into something even greater than we’d hoped it could be; to the guests who lent their considerable talents to this project: Henry Canyons, Convertible Ashley, Joshua Virtue, Freddie Old Soul, Alaska, Curly Castro (whose feedback helped bump the album's rating up by at least one mic), PremRock, and Armand Hammer; to Alexander Richter for the AMAZING photos that adorn the front and back covers of the album; to Lamon Manuel, whose feedback and perspective inflated what was once a lead balloon into truly ascendant music; and to everyone who has supported our work over the years, as collaborators, customers, family members, and friends. We hope you enjoy the album, and we hope it rewards your faith.

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Defcee & Messiah Musik

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