As hip-hop and all its sonic offspring continue to grow, expand, and explore new territory, sonic and otherwise, it moves far from its South Bronx roots in many ways; in others, it remains every bit as recognisable to those early pioneers as those first breakthrough sounds.
I.K.P. might come to the mic via Honduran-American ancestry, not to mention military service, homelessness and life-changing trauma, but ‘Kill or B Killed’ is built of the same core East Coast grit and street smarts, attitude and awareness as the scene was all those years ago. And while the track is shot through with skittering trap beats, smooth soul backdrops, and depth-charge bass, his lyrical flow and dexterous wordplay tip his hat to the more traditional, iconic sound of hip-hop too.
Just experimental enough to move things forward, familiar enough to appeal to existing fans of streetwise music, ‘Kill or B Killed’ ticks all the right boxes, but it is perhaps the video which is the striking element. As I.K.P. turns the negatives of his life into a message of positivity, the Afrofuturistic appearance reminds us that hip-hop is no longer the regional sound it once was; that it has found its way across the world and then back home again.
‘Kill or B Killed’ is therefore both a tipping of the hat to the original sound and a cross-cultural, boundary-hopping, generically free and geographically unrestricted leap into the future.
