The Pop Corporation

Perhaps it’s testament to Outkast that any new genre-blurring rap group that emerges immediately makes us think of them. The latest group who are surely getting tickled with that brush are young hot-shots, Paris Texas. That’s nothing to do with the film of the same name, so calm down country boys.

It appears that Paris Texas are bringing back Rap Rock, but ease off the pedal – this isn’t terrible Nu Metal stylings and nor it is it Public Enemy vs Anthrax – this is a very different beast that has more of the hallmarks of Dirty South, maybe mixed with RZA offshoot The Gravediggaz. Sure, there’s rock elements to this music, but it sounds more like Horrorcore and the heavier side of Odd Future to us, with some Stankonia thrown in at the end, like fine seasoning.

While sonically different, it feels like Paris Texas are stepping in where EARTHGANG left us wanting after so much initial promise. There’s a new LP out which feel like hipster catnip (no bad thing, as such) uniting the hardcore kids with the hip hop lovers, and you gotta imagine that they’re promising wild shows.

In tracks like ‘Everybody’s Safe Until…’, you have that Gen X nihilism and goofiness that’ll please the mums and dads, but thanks to 30 year cycles in pop-culture, the Ed Hardy wearing kids (yes, that’s back if you missed the memo) are going to love it too.

To say this is well-timed music is an understatement.

Y’see, hip hop has had it’s grunge period, with a terrible spate of overdoses and kids replacing heroin for benzos and the drowsy fatalism that came with a lot of the recent youth movements, and now, it’s time for that energy to be coupled with some absurdity.

Instead of idolising fatally depressed rockstars, this is more based in, say, The Dirtbombs and Bad Brains. Either way, Paris Texas are a timely change that hip hop has been crying out for, and it’s almost moot whether you rate the music or not, because this is the sound of a studio door being kicked open and everyone piling in, smoking cigarettes.

If you’re going to graduate from Brockhampton and their like, Paris Texas are as good a place to start as any. If you’re older and looking for some noise, this should knock your socks off. Their new LP ‘Mid Air’ has all the hallmarks of a smash.

Sure enough, there’s been a whole bunch of hype around the duo, but unusually for a modern group of any genre, they’ve effectively shied away from it all, and become rather enigmatic in sharp relief to the usual promotional social media clucking and posing.

What Paris Texas have in their arsenal is fun. If you’re going to stare at the state of the world and feel overwhelmed by it, then we need someone to say it’s okay to shrug at everything and start acting up.

That’s not to say they’re not taking their music seriously, but rather, there’s no po-faced reverence for what they’re supposed to be doing. It hops around genres, sometimes within the space of a track. There’s super uptempo bops, and then there’s clattering punk-rap that’s claustrophobic and heavy.

When they let the brakes off, they’re a riot. In ‘Full English’, in the blink of an eye, the LA pair mention eating beans, having a roast, rolling cigs, driving on the left, having a shag, going to Nandos, bad weather, Tesco, and impishly, doing coke (they’ve definitely spent time over here, confirmed).

It’s a good time, it’s chaotic, it’s hard as nails, it’s a night out, it sounds like a wild show, it’s cartoonish, it’s pretty thrilling stuff. They’re not quite like the rest of the pack and the hip hop puritan that lives in our chests kinda wants to hate them, which means they must be doing something right, right? That’s because they’re undeniably great and deserve to fully blow up. We can trust them to cause trouble in the prime time slots, and that’s exactly what we need.

You know what they’re showing everyone? Something that is sorely lacking across all spectrums of music – it’s a complete abandonment of everyone else’s expectations and total creative freedom.

They’re going to boil the piss out of the most annoying people you know, and we’ve got to co-sign that.