Pressed on Ghostly Colored Vinyl Decay, the new album from New Jersey rapper Fatboi Sharif and producer Steel Tipped Dove is an anomaly. In an era of microwave projects and email collaborations, the duo spent over a year writing, recording, and mixing Decay in Dove's Brooklyn studio. At a moment when many independent hip-hop projects are sonically predictable, easily categorized, and derivative, Decay is unapologetically experimental. Love it or hate it, it doesn't sound like any other record. Add to all that the fact that there isn't a single guest appearance on Decay, bucking the trend of feature-laden rap records. This album is a one-of-one, handcrafted from the ground up by two of the genre's most esoteric artists, under the umbrella of indie rap's preeminent record label. In October 2020, Dove contacted Sharif after hearing about Gandhi Loves Children, Sharif's project with Roper Williams: "I really liked the experimental writing he was doing. The whole vibe was different from the beat choices, the visuals, the lyrics — all unique," Dove explains. The two of them linked up and hit it off immediately. "In the first session, we had made two songs that ended up being some of the best work on the album," Sharif says, "and as we worked on it, we knew we had something special that we weren't hearing anywhere else, and we kept building on that." Sharif found himself digging deeply to write, which he credits to Dove's attention to detail and ability to push the boundaries sonically. "Dove's production kept me in the zone to touch on stories that I never touched on in my past work, from personal situations tucked away that I thought I wasn't ready to unveil yet to convos we just would have regarding the state of everything going on in the world and beyond." For his part, Dove was consistently impressed by the young artists' dedication and ear for the unusual. "It was almost like a challenge to him: if I had a beat that no one had chosen or that had kind of strange timing, he would almost always choose that one." This is Koyaanisqatsi via Rahway, New Jersey. A winding nighttime drive along the narrow, rutted paths of a damaged psyche, dead deer watching from the roadside. Decay is a candlelit spades game in the parlor of a dilapidated mansion, eviction papers pasted atop one another on the front door. A black Woodstock in the wetlands, blotter acid in the headband, as ELUCID might say. Together, Sharif and Dove just flipped on the power to a carousel in the middle of an abandoned amusement park, and every horse has a rider, spinning and spinning in the dark. "Sometimes in life, we feel held down, tested, and sought after by an unseen force that we can't fully explain," Sharif muses, "this album is a trip into the foundation of the dysfunction that surrounds us all in one way or another." Tracklist: A1 PhantasmA2 East HollywoodA3 Designer DrugsA4 Brandon LeeA5 DimethyltryptamineA6 Ash WednesdayA7 (Interlude)A8 Prisoner Of JesusB1 Think PiecesB2 KingdomB3 Measuring Spoon TechniquesB4 Green Winged Shoulder PaddingB5 The ChristeningB6 The 6th FloorB7 ScarheadB8 Boogie MonsterB9 The Farewell Outfit
