Mr Key & Illinformed - Kez (Digital)
UK rap legend Mr Key returns alongside Illinformed with flash album KEZ.
After yet another extended hiatus, Mr Key is back with an unexpected concept album that combines tongue-in-cheek Viz mag humour, razor sharp lyricism, and pitch perfect boom bap production, to paint a surreal technicolour portrait of life amongst the freaks at the glorious, grotty edges of society.
Cutting his teeth as 1/5 of UK hip hop supergroup Contact Play, which he followed with two acclaimed experimental segues alongside Greenwood Sharps, Mr Key’s musical journey has been far from mundane. His new flash release - ‘KEZ’ - a concept album which documents the rise of a plucky kestrel through an off-grid anarchist commune - 'Bene' - populated by an ensemble cast of misfits, lost souls, drug dealers, new age healers, and would be cult leaders, is without doubt the weirdest and most wonderful twist yet.
´KEZ´ is a kaleidoscopic offering which diffracts the four years Mr Key spent in a chaotic off-grid commune in Southern Spain through the conceptual lens of cinematic New York golden age classics like ‘Only Built 4 Cuban Linx’ and ‘Prince Among Thieves’; the zero f**ks given energy of Contact Play and early era High Focus, and the foul mouthed British surrealism epitomised by Monty Python and Viz magazine. Such a strange concoction could easily miss the mark, but in the hands of a trio of veterans - Key, Illinformed and cartoonist Monsta - the results are as exceptional as they are unique.
With features from Dirty Dike, Jam Baxter, Ronnie Bosh, Smellington Piff, Leaf Dog, BVA and Sammy B-Side, and art from longtime friend and collaborator Monsta bringing the story to life at the crumbling edges of modernity.
TRACKLIST:
01 - Escape From Bene
02 - Wakey Wakey Feat. Smellington Piff
03 - All Right OK
04 - What Is This Place?
05 - He Say She Say Feat. Dirty Dike & Sammy B-Side
06 - John Connor High Lyf
07 - Bury Me In Bene Feat. Leaf Dog
08 - Why Is It? Feat. BVA
09 - I Dunno
10 - No Time
11 - Yellow Tops
12 - Isabel Allende Feat. Jam Baxter & Ronnie Bosh
‘Kez' is OUT NOW!
*Download available in both WAV and MP3 formats.