Slaine’s accomplished a pretty decorated career. As an entertainer, he’s moved from young Boston rapper, to sharing screens with Top-grade stars like Ben Affleck, Brad Pitt, and most recently, Kevin Hart, and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.
As an emcee, Slaine’s catalog includes collaborative records with several titans of the Hip-hop world; Snoop Dogg, Cypress Hill, Raekwon, and Wu-Tang’s U-God to list a few—not to mention founding the rap supergroup, La Coka Nostra, along with Everest, DJ Lethal, Danny Boy, and Non-Phixion’s Ill Bill.
Underneath his success, fans came to know Slaine for his introspect storytelling rhymes, each story seemingly sucking you into a dark world of drugs, violence, love and loss, dreams and nightmares, and pain. In the midst of it all, Slaine somehow infuses hope, faith, and an impenetrable light, and the output is a brilliant collision between light and dark.
But perhaps what made his storytelling so tangible and authentic, was that Slaine has literally lived through it, much of his tales revolving around the emcee’s drug epidemic that would have made the emcee’s new album’s title an actual newsprint. For along with the rapper’s rising success, came the familiar feeling of pressure, and, according to many, the feeling as if walls are closing in on you as the world comes crashing down. The walls did close for Slaine on March 2nd, 2014 after an ugly bender.
On the next day, March 3rd, the Boston emcee took to make a stand out of the murk and mire, and just yesterday, September 23, 2016, Slaine returns with rhymes about how the life of intoxication can burn one to the ground, and stories of how Slaine himself, rose into new life out of the ashes. To this day, the Boston emcee has attested to a life of sobriety, totally liberated from drugs and alcohol.
Slaine Is Dead features the Slaine story through eight brand-new tracks, all of which featuring the Boston emcee keeping true to his introspect lyricism as he narrates his darkest moments, standing face to face against the demons plaguing his life.
Once again, fans will familiarize with the master storyteller, exploring despair and imminent hope through numerous personas, such as a conflicted drug dealer in the song “Pusher”, a man struggling with a addiction on songs like “Nobody Prays for Me” and “Slaine is Dead”, to perhaps the same man defying its grips with “Knocked Down” and “Legendary”. The record concludes with man’s ultimate pursuit towards liberation with the song “Coming Home”.
The album also showcases appearances from longtime collaborators, Vinnie Paz, Ill Bill, Statik Selektah, Termanology, Demrick DJ Eclipse, and Rite Hook, and also features vocal support from Jared Evan. Under the production of The Arcitype, Slaine Is Dead, accomplishes the emcee’s iconic design of a fabricated dark world fabled with stories of those groping and battling for the light. And though the title tells otherwise, Slaine is both reborn and advocating life with his latest album.
By Jods Arboleda for RAPStation.com
