If they handed out awards for album-title wordplay, Bay Area rapper Sha Ray and NY-based producer DJ Haram would have to clear off some shelf space. Later this week, the two of them will release their collaborative LP Critical Thot, which has the best title I’ve seen in a minute. The two new tracks that they’ve shared are good, too.
DJ Haram, born in New Jersey, makes forceful, adventurous music that tends to defy genre categories. She’s half of the duo 700 Bliss with Moor Mother, and she’s made intense tracks for the members of Armand Hammer, both separately and together. Last year, she released her album Beside Myself, and Sha Ray appeared alongside Bbymutha and August Fanon on the song “Fishnets.”
DJ Haram and Sha Ray have been mutual fans for a while, and they met after Sha Ray flew down to see Haram open for Armand Hammer in LA. They recorded Critical Thot remotely, co-producing it together. In the Bandcamp description, Sha Ray says:
As a rapper, I’m pretty exclusively interested in interrogating misogyny and sexuality in my work. Critical Thot is a deliberation on unapologetic feminine authority, while being very honest about the complicated truth of being a participant in self-objectification, and sexuality as a social currency. This record focuses a lot on defining power in feminine sexuality as relational and ever-shifting, and thus inherently imperfect. However, it is a power that I have, and I am going to use it.
Below, check out the early tracks “Champagne And Bouquets” and “Thot Daughter,” as well as the tracklist.
TRACKLIST:
01 “The Material”
02 “Champagne And Bouquets”
03 “Thot Daughter”
04 “Hey Queen” (feat. Nappy Nina & J Words)
05 “Shole Ain’t”
06 “Strictly” (feat. Archangel)
07 “Low End Skeeza”
08 “Elixir”
09 “Boudoir”
Critical Thot is out 6/19 on Backwoodz.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source stereogum.com ’
