Singular Artists presents Chuck Strangers
Thursday 14th November, The Cellar
For his 13th birthday in 2005, Chuck Strangers was gifted Akai’s MPC2000, a bulky workstation immortalised by the likes of J Dilla, Kanye West, and DJ Shadow. Audio interfaces didn’t cost $100 the way they do now, and so, like any other adolescent (1) obsessed with music and (2) lacking the riches of favourite musicians, he programmed countless beats onto the machine in his free time, with zero idea how to actually get them out. It would be four years until a friend of his finally introduced him to FL Studio, but those four years — of creation, and a lot of it, purely for creation’s sake — remain indicative of a love for hip-hop that, though fairly tested, has never wavered. As time has created increasing room for overnight sensations and superstardom-via-paid-promotion, his relationship with his art has remained process-oriented, married to both lofty highs and inevitable lows.
This tangled romance is the crux of A Forsaken Lover’s Plea, Chuck’s most comprehensive solo project since Consumers Park, his 2018 debut. The five years that have made up the interim time, not unlike the four years he spent making unheard beats, were teeming with hard-learned lessons, even if not all of those lessons are available on streaming. For one, he found that if he applied himself with patience and discipline, he’d be surprised at what he could accomplish: “It’s cliche,” he says, “but if you put in a bunch of reps, you’re going to get brolic.” Like muscle mass on a body, the reps manifest themselves in a distinctive bulkening, adding compelling new layers to his singular sound. Where Consumers Park remained steadfast in the 90s-borne, boom-bap ethos that forged him, A Forsaken Lover’s Plea sounds markedly lush, candid rhymes bolstered by a slew of guest producers — including The Alchemist, Animoss, and NV. Chuck’s own production feels current without ditching its previous homeliness, a seamless compliment to his honest, lived-in raps.
Yet there’s also the quotidian, sometimes gruelling, up-and-down of a committed relationship to something like hip-hop — cathartic at best, and unforgiving at worst. Though rap-as-girlfriend is another cliche he’s wary of, his lasting affair with the music has taught him rough lessons, not unlike real-life courtships, of humility, patience, and process. “I’m grateful for everything I’ve done,” he says; but as would be true for any long-term partner, “I’ve got much more to offer.”
For Chuck, that process has beginnings in New York City’s public high school system, where over time, he connected with members of his former collective, the Capital STEEZ-founded Pro Era. As an in-house producer for the group, he conjured distinctly gritty soundscapes reminiscent of an East-Coast legacy, but simultaneously suggestive of its potential future. 2018 found him eager to reckon between these prongs as a solo artist; on his debut record, he balanced lush production with searing storytelling, somewhere between witty prophet and well-studied student-turned-teacher. But as the years went by and his involvement with Pro Era waned, he found himself collaborating with a fresher crop of New York MCs, less infatuated with East-Coast yesterdays than newer-sounding tomorrows. Features consulted for 2020’s Too Afraid to Dance, a 15- minute EP, tell a dual story about each of these narrative stems: coexisting with Ka, a long-tenured soldier of New York’s hip-hop underground, are Navy Blue and Caleb Giles, among the region’s newest torchbearers.
On A Forsaken Lover’s Plea, Chuck taps a number of longtime collaborators, each sharing a familiar 90s-New-York backdrop — Remy Banks, Joey Bada$$, Erick the Architect — without sounding like he’s trapped in the past. After all, the record is less about yearning for history than reckoning with it, the weight of time being more of an engine than an anchor. With examining yesterday comes examining oneself; after a decade spent eulogising New York’s golden age, he’s turning that focus inward, eulogising the version of himself he’s steadily learning to outgrow. On the title track, a Graymatter-produced conversation with hip-hop about shortcomings and tensions, admits to being “Too G to take a knee” — less about ignorant pride, and more about the patient resolve that’s not only brought him to his current standing, but is poised to pave the way for both his, and New York rap’s, future. “I’m not giving up,” he says. “All these niggas are like ‘I love so and so,’ or ‘he’s my favorite rapper,’ but not me. I’ve gotta keep going.”
