Backxwash - Only Dust Remains (2025)
a run through four decades of the hip hop underground
Ashanti Mutinta moved from Zambia to Canada to go to school. In the process, she developed a wild and thoroughly modern approach to hip hop, production, and beat music in general.
Her earlier releases (2021’s I LIE HERE BURIED WITH MY RINGS AND MY DRESSES is a great one), were a lot more hard-edged, with a lot of metal samples and industrial beats. This one isn’t as overtly noisy, filling the space with more conventional samples and sounds. But the lyrics are just as intense, still focusing on personal struggles. The overall effect is more mainstream-friendly but still rages and seethes underneath.
Tracks I Liked
Wake Up - wraps the overwhelming sonics of her previous releases into something more focused.
9th Heaven - examination of a personal crisis
History Of Violence - the personal and the political crashing into each other
