Any album that starts out with a guest verse from Philadelphia-based rapper Torito is already a winner in my book.
That’s all I’ve got to say, no clever opening, no quotes, that’s it.
Review over.
Just kidding, but the statement above still stands.
“Golden God” is the strongest opening to a Darko the Super album yet, a bold declaration of intent that somehow manages to last an entire album. The beat feels like it would fit in with an MM…FOOD b-side compilation, with its’ high pitch samples and energetic percussion.
Clocking in at just about the same length as an episode of Psych without the commercials, The Devil Defeated is a victory lap from an offbeat emcee who is currently at the top of his game, which happens to not be checkers, or even chess. In fact, I don’t know what Darko’s game is, because he keeps rewriting the rules and sharpening his craft as he goes.
In fact, while I wrote that last paragraph, Darko has already written, produced, and recorded two albums even better than this one.
The prolific emcee/producer is morphing into an artist in the truest sense, a man with a vision that seems to be unraveling faster than his pen and recording studio can accommodate, as the second track “Butterflies in My Tummy” is not connected to the Ohio Express 1968 pop hit “Yummy Yummy Yummy”, although the song was featured in his latest mix released on his Patreon site.
Which you can click HERE to join and financially support Evan Souza, aka Darko, as he creates Beautiful Art that none us deserve but still get to listen to anyway.
And “Butterflies in My Tummy”?
It is one of the most relaxed and natural tracks I’ve heard in the storied Darko catalogue, he feels so comfortable rapping in distorted echo-y vocals over the lush bed of cowbells, hi-hats, synths, and THOSE HORNS. Those rich, languid horns that encourage you to just sit back and just CHILL.
Who is behind THOSE HORNS?
No other than Steel-Tipped Dove, of course!
Steel-Tipped Dove, aka “Joe”, is yet another super soulful producer that works really well with Darko’s dusty, lo-fi Mellow Gold aesthetic. I don’t know how these creative geniuses find each other, but let’s thank the universe that it keeps happening, we are all the better for it.
Oh, and you know what is even crazier?
Darko the Super = DTS
Steel-Tipped Dove = STD
DTS = STD
WHOA.
It’s like this album was supposed to be happen.
Steel-Tipped Dove’s beats are just as crucial as Darko the Super’s idiosyncratic scribblings to the theme of the piece, which is, in a nutshell, fighting your personal demons. The Devil Defeated is an album that takes the listener to the metaphorical crossroads that Robert Johnson and countless other blues musicians found themselves at during their melodious careers.
The beats are indie rap fueled with old old OLD school blues and jazz samples that pay homage to the art forms born out of struggle and hardships that paved the way for modern-day Hip-Hop. Dove takes us back to the Wild West, where a horned figure wielding pitchforks promised lives of prosperity to anyone willing to exchange their soul for them.
It is in these spaghetti western piano loops, dramatic vocal samples, and twangy guitars that Evan’s religious metaphors truly shine, creating a story of music and lyrics that cannot be separated, as they have formed a symbiotic relationship that would make Venom proud.
There is a point during “Butterflies” when the song stops to let snare part of the beat repeat three or four times, and it is simply heaven.
The transition between “Butterflies in My Tummy” and “The News” is flawless, giving them the feeling that they (and the entire album) are one song. I would say that this track has the “obligatory ialive guest appearance,” but as they work together so well, I would never call a track with Darko and ialive on it “obligatory,” because it just feels right.
The two bring the best out of each other, as Evan raps “You don’t wanna see me try to do a push up, that’s depressing, like the ending in The Mist, I’m regretting”. Then ialive steps up to the mic and provides his signature flips of traditional battle rap disses, the most brilliant of them being the following:
“Ya mama should’ve had her tubes tied…if she wanted, I respect a woman’s choice you know I never fronted”
He took the typical “mom should’ve never had you” jab and turned it into a pro choice message, a delightful turn of events that keeps me rewinding the advance mp3 that Evan sent me through Gmail. ialive has created his own lane of “insults for the right reasons”, or “Hip-Hop cliches remixed”, and the genre as a whole is all the better for it.
Darko the Super works with incredibly talented artists, and The Devil Defeated is no exception, ialive is not the only emcee who blesses his latest release with lyrical greatness. “Let Go and Let God” sees Evan linking up with Charles Hamilton and Lil B, a fellow prolific emcee who the Philadelphia-born emcee has name checked before, having previously released an album called Thank You Based God in his honor.
My favorite guest verse (and, at this point, favorite song) on TDD is on “Horse Meat Stew”, and it’s from Alaska, an emcee formerly of legendary underground Def Jux rap group Hangar 18. The entire verse is quotable, honestly, I could just type it out and you would be salivating for this upcoming album release. It is so funny, as he references “NO FEAR shirts” while clowning Kanye West and Candace Owens, declaring that he is “on my Asher Roth”, which is “the whitest shit I’ve ever said.” By the time he gives props to Russian YouTube dash cams, I’m converted to a life long Alaska fan.
The emcee, not the state my brother-in-law was stationed in when he met my sister on a Christian dating site.
The Devil Defeated is essentially a Stones Throw record made to be played on a Victrola, and this is never more obvious when listening to the climactic title track. Placed right in the middle of the album, it is there where the its meaning is defined and where Darko lays down the gauntlet:
“I’m still patiently waiting, so close I can taste it. I don’t live in the moment, I live in atonement. I don’t wanna be a grown up, I’m a song and dance man. THAT'S THE PLAN"
It is after these lines that it all becomes clear. The Devil Defeated is not the cheesy Halloween costume rendition of the world’s evils, nor is it the Beezlebub or various incarnations of the Underworld mentioned in the religions of the world. Those ancient tales are merely the metaphorical vehicle for Evan to travel through his own desert of self-doubt and fear of giving up on rap for “getting married and joining softball leagues”.
That quote is from his guest verse on the latest ialive masterpiece I’ll Wait Forever, which you should also cop on Bandcamp.
“The Devil Defeated
Daniel Johnston is a beautiful genius”
The Devil Defeated is a fifteen track manifesto dedicated to and inspired by Daniel Johnston, a brilliant singer songwriter who died last year. Kurt Cobain often wore a T-shirt with artwork from one of his albums, admitting that he was a huge fan. Daniel was a pure artist, devoted to the craft through tapes recorded in his home. He also struggled with mental illness during his creative journey through Middle Earth, which was the “devil” on his back while he toiled away at his trade.
Darko himself is no stranger to skirmishes of the mind, having chronicled his bouts with depression, loneliness, anger, and intense fear all throughout his intensely honest discography. Darko’s self-deprecating comedy sometimes masks the tragedy behind the laugh, though it is a neon sign for fellow sad clowns who are looking for a place to belong and be understood.
This record is a spiritual sequel to Card Tricks For Dogs, which was Darko’s last album. Card Tricks is an R+B-tinged trip down a memory lane full of melancholy and a sober acceptance of who he is as an artist and a human being. The Devil Defeated sees a triumphant Evan, having walked through the valleys of shadow and death and not just accepting, but celebrating who he is and what he wants out of life.
Even “Lo Fi Princess”, the track reminiscent of other Darko “love songs” like “Chemicals” from Bogus Poetry in the Dizzy Age and “Imaginary Girlfriend” from Card Tricks For Dogs, feels like a step forward in art of romantic song craft. Steel-Tipped Dove provides the warm and fuzzy electronic ambience kept in time with an infectious “snap clap” type of rhythm to feel amorous yet never too cheesy. “You knocked down the walls like you are Mister George W” will go down in the annals as the most historically questionable yet delightfully weird pick up line in a Hip-Hop song EVER.
This is not his “I’ve made money money money” album, far from the contrary: Evan hasn’t gone platinum YET, but this victory is far more important. He has chased away his inner demons and passed his Baptism of Fire: “I saw the devil down on Front Street, turned his face to lunch meat.” Gone are the days of wanting to kill himself in Charleston, he is a winner pure of heart and spirit, and no one can take that away from him.
Or as Evan puts it, “The Nightmare is alive and it’s topping the charts”.
The self-deprecation is still there, but it is from the perspective of an honest man who doesn’t hate himself for his traits perceived as faults to a color by numbers society.
“At Recess they used to call me Goofy the Reject
Now they buy my tape and eject
Throw it in the parking lot
For you losers hell is dark and hot
Tell your sister I want my class ring back”
He comes in later with the ultimate victory statement, dunking on his high school tormentors by stating “I’m the clever one!” He follows it up on “Wet Cigarette,” setting the record straight by admitting “I ain’t a scared of Satan or the darkness, my heart’s full”.
I love how, like his fellow wordsmith ialive, he takes the Hip-Hop cliche of “people used to hate me, now they love me” and flips it, saying they still aren’t fans. But the distinction here is that he loves himself, no matter what others think of him, and that they have their own devils to defeat while Evan is busy making art with his peers and loving every minute of life.
This album isn’t all fire and brimstone, though.
Darko takes some time to joke around with the concept of good versus evil, as he quips “I hate the Drake like Seinfeld,” a reference to Why Are You Reading This? You’re Stupid, an EP Darko created that has a cover parodying Drake release If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late. He also states that “She tastes like Coca-Cola, and I’m a Pepsi guy, plus Coke supported Nazis, and that ain’t wise.”
Clearly Drake and Diet soda are lesser devils in this world that need to be defeated.
Both of these lines are from “Front Row 40 Water,” the next to last track on the album. Previously recorded for Eight Years at Bernie’s, Darko’s fundraiser album for the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign, Evan was not happy with his vocals (he was sick that day), so he re-recorded it with a Steel-Tipped Dove beat and the rest will be history soon.
Look, I’m not even going to describe “The Proverbial Gun” to you, aside from the fact that it is the final track on The Devil Defeated and it is one of the greatest closing songs Darko has ever recorded and the beat is so. so. SO. GOOD. At this point, if I haven’t convinced you to listen to this album then you just hate enjoying great art and there is nothing I can do for you.
I feel bad for you.
The Devil Defeated hits streets on March 13th, and will be released on cassette tape and digital download by indie analog tape giants Already Dead Tapes and Records.
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