Pink Siifu
BLACK’!ANTIQUE
DYNAMITE HILL
ABOVE THE CURRENT
Pink Siifu has been breaking with convention—that of R&B, hip-hop, free jazz, industrial hardcore, and beyond—at least since 2018’s jittery, interplanetary full-length epic, Ensley, then again with 2020’s punkish NEGRO (that’s not to say 2022’s GUMBO’! wasn’t additionally groundbreaking—it just means that by that point, Siifu lovers came to expect drama). Like his past collaborator MIKE, the rapper, producer, and post-soul provocateur uses a carefully paced, even lackadaisical vocal flow which, like Eric Dolphy did with his flute solos, creates its own intertwined Moebius-strip trip. When added to his intricate arrangements, that oddly fluid pacing, together with occasional staccato riffs that act as sudden punctuation, makes for one theatrical presentation far beyond hip-hop’s grasp in 2025.
Lyrically speaking in angry tongues of the dead and the dying throughout his new album, BLACK’!ANTIQUE, Siifu and his coterie of collaborators (including features from BbyMutha, Liv.e, Ho99o9, and 454, as well as production from Nick Hakim, Fatboi Sharif, and Roper Williams) hang onto the more spiky musical qualities of NEGRO on “Alive & Direct’!” and this record’s title track before sailing outward toward the Sun Ra–esque offshoots of Jupiter. From there, the songs and their productions expand in length and breadth to include the oozingly psychedelic “Sleepatthewheel’!” with longtime collaborator Big Rube, something tart and samba-influenced with “Translation’!,” the splintered soul of “Outside’!,” and, even a sound worthy of Dre-like G-funk comparison on “Last One Alive’!”
That last bit is as close to convention as Pink Siifu will travel, however, given that the combined whole of BLACK’!ANTIQUE is memorably melodic (in a menacing fashion, usually when the songs find a melancholy restful break) and weirdly wired. Enjoy at your leisure. Ignore at your peril.
