Have you heard of NJ’s dälek – complex underground hip-hop from NJ?!

Text by Sohrab Saadat Ladjevardi

Recently during a rehearsal my music buddy Ravish Momin mentioned dälek when we talked about electronics and Hip Hop in general. So I checked this hip-hop crew out!

dälek (pronounced ‘Die-a-leck’) is an American experimental hip hop duo from Newark, New Jersey. The group is composed of MC dälek (vocals & co-producer) and the Oktopus (production). They have often toured with artists from radically different genres, such as Godflesh, Isis, Prince Paul, The Melvins, Tool, De La Soul, RJD2, and Lovage.

Dälek’s music is complex underground hip-hop: dark, noisy and atmospheric, equally inspired by industrial music like the German legendary noise band Einstürzende Neubauten, the layered noise of My Bloody Valentine and the dense sound collages of Public Enemy. Using aggressive, intelligent rhymes with insightful lyrics, they are sometimes described as trip-hop, glitch-hop, and metal- shoegaze-hip-hop, and criticized for their genreless approach to music.


 

Let MC Dälek speak (as he described the duo’s music to the Chicago Sun-Times):
”If there is a difference. It’s that the palette of sounds we work with is more varied than what has been called hip- hop in the last 10 years. Somehow, as hip-hop grew, it’s been put into this box. I think it’s funny when people are like, ‘That’s not hip-hop. It’s this and this and this.’ You can try to rationalize it as whatever you want to rationalize it as.”

This duo has been touring Europe for the last years and became very popular there. Why not here?

Discography

Studio albums

  • Negro Necro Nekros (1998)
  • From Filthy Tongue of Gods and Griots (2002)
  • Absence (2004)
  • Abandoned Language (2007)
  • Gutter Tactics (2009)
  • Untitled (2010)

Collaborations, EPs and compilations

  • Megaton/Classic Homicide (2000) split collaboration with Techno Animal
  • Ruin It (2002) in collaboration with Kid 606
  • Derbe Respect, Alder (2004) in collaboration with Faust
  • Streets All Amped (2006)
  • Deadverse Massive Vol. 1 (2007) Rarities 1999-2006[3]
  • Griots And Gods – Les Eurockeennes Festival Belfort 2010 (2010) Live collaboration with The Young Gods.