When we caught up with Texas-reared rapper Plato III earlier this year, the artist born Ryan Silva told us that the only religion he aimed to endorse on his then-new LP was that of the Based God who materializes on a track with the expressed intent of summoning him. Yet there’s clearly a spirituality underlying certain moments of the record, namely on the skygazing, agnostic-surreal successor to “Summon the Based God” titled “Heaven.” At under two minutes it feels a bit like a heavily existential transitional piece as the record recalibrates from its Lil B–featuring interlude.
Today Plato is summoning another beloved figure with an impressively broad reach and deep history of collaboration, with Polyvinyl labelmate Jay Som serving up an upbeat, tripped-out remix to “Heaven.” Considerably less introspective than the album version, Melina Duterte’s take is an ecstatic reimagining seemingly born out of a mutual sense of admiration. “Everybody Works is my favorite album of 2017,” Plato shares of Duterte’s sophomore LP. “I was in the crowd for the Jay Som/Japanese Breakfast tour. I think the world of Melina, and I can't believe we have a song together now.
Citing Duterte as an influence on the direction of his latest album, he continues: “I always thought of myself as a rapper, but then I read about her making songs in her bedroom and I was like, ‘That’s what I do.’ Looking back, that sort of opened the door to me thinking I might have as much in common with indie folk as I do the hip-hop world. We both got our names from silly online name generators.”
Hear the remix and check out the new video for the original version of “Heaven” which also dropped today below.
