The two students of J Dilla consolidate their skills to create a free-spirited project around joy and fellowship, with a few meandering moments.
Fly Anakin and Pink Siifu share a commitment to community. Fly Anakin, a member of Richmond, Virginia rap collective Mutant Academy, moves with an official unit. Pink Siifu, a wanderer with roots in Cincinnati, Birmingham, and Los Angeles, lacks a formal affiliation, but he’s a fixture of multiple scenes. On FlySiifu’s, the two toast to their support networks and merge them into a village of music enthusiasts and free spirits. The record has the feel of a summer cookout in the park, joy and fellowship flowing freely, friends coming and going.
Set in a record shop that’s named after the rappers but not owned by them, FlySiifu’s follows a day in the life of two languid store clerks. Part Next Friday, part Clerks, the album is stuffed with goofy interludes and skits where customers call the shop and leave angry and yearning voicemails. MadLib, who provides the dusty, hollowed-out beat on “Time Up,” and J Dilla are clear influences. (One customer requests a copy of Welcome 2 Detroit.) There are few choruses, and the pair rarely trade lines or thread their verses together, but their styles have subtle chemistry. Fly Anakin is a showman, streaking through beats with slick, nimble flows, while Pink Siifu is the shaman, his rapping hushed and anxious like prayer. Together they make songs that are heavy yet light, bleak yet resilient.
The production style ranges from dreamy chopped loops with crisp drums to soupy mixes with dollops of texture. Jay Versace’s ghostly piano sample on “Mind Right” leads to verses laced with defiance and dread. Twinkly tracks “Clean” and “Runthafade,” both produced by Lastnamedavid, are breezy and leisurely, yielding full-throated boasts and punchlines. “I’m gold like C-3/Mother fuck a P.O.,” Pink Siifu says, on the former. Fly Anakin follows his lead, repping Richmond: “Divide the James River when I start to practice on the weekend/I hopped the fence and peeked in/My opulence precedes ’em.”
The highlights are the moments when they lean into the contrasts between their styles and voices. “Spades’” is split down the middle between flash and shadow, Fly Anakin swishing around internal rhymes and colorful threats with the precision of Cam’ron: “You know you owe us, nigga/Cold fish pushing boulders, nigga/Focus got you open/Now you loc’in/Bitch you bogus,” he raps. When Pink Siifu takes the reins, the song turns existential: “What more can I say?/How much can I say?/Who can I pray for?/So much to pay for/We find a way.” Both verses address betrayal but come to different conclusions, Pink Siifu offering redemption to Fly Anakin’s retribution. It almost feels like a debate.
Between the skits, the freeform song structures, and the length, FlySiifu’s is a bit too meandering, rarely tapping into the fusionism the title implies or playing up Pink Siifu and Fly Anakin’s differences. But the bond between the artists is clear, as is the resonance between their communities of rappers, producers, and singers. Though they don’t bridge new worlds or sounds here, they confirm the implicit connections between their formative muses, threading the outré time signatures of J Dilla and Madlib, the spiritualism of Dungeon Family, and the flair of Dipset into a cozy tapestry. It’s not groundbreaking, but it is home.
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