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Rest in Peace, Labal-S (1977 - 2021)

 

This is not going to be an easy post to make. One of my favourite rappers, Labal-S passed away this past Monday, February 22, 2021. Dude was an amazing lyricist, had a knack for dark and dreary beats and painted vivid macabre pictures with his bars. I found out through labelmate LoDeck's bandcamp account. There is a memorial fund that I ask if you enjoy his music to donate to. I will link it all below. I will be dedicating the rest of this post to how I heard about his music and how it impacted me. 

I got big into Jakprogresso in 2016. How I had not heard of him up until that point was beyond me. From there I dove into the crew Jak had been associated with since his early days, Johnny23 Records. Johnny23 is a label based out of New York State that features this very unique take of hardcore hip hop and horrorcore. Taking the violently lyricism from horrorcore, the strange bars from abstract hip hop and very dark and sometimes epic beats they paved their own round. Other members include BMC, LoDeck, Boxguts, Will Taubin and Mike220. Most notably rapper Mac Lethal and producer Blockhead were also members of the collective at one point. 

Digging even further into Labal-S I found out he was also a member of the short-lived Shadow People collective featuring boom bap heavyweight Danegurous and Dead Rabbits member Ixion Form. The group never released anything proper aside from a few songs but they were all quite good. 
Labal-S' pen game was amazing. The guy would rap about everything from violence to esoteric religious concepts to  video game moves, old-school horror movies and macabre imagery. His husky and deep voice was unmatched and I cannot think of another rapper that sounds similar to him. 

I don't know exactly what Labal-S was doing prior to J23 but he joined the collective in the early 2010s with his group Bloody Monk Consortium. Bloody Monk Consortium or BMC for short is a trio consisting of Labal-S, rapper Leeroy Destroy and producer Lugerlex. I had first heard about Labal-S through his group. Around the time I had been looking into Johnny23 the group released their 2017 work "Fully Automated Kill Unlimited". I was blown away by it. 

Fully Automated Kill Unlimited (2017)

At the time I was playing a lot of E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy. I doubt I'll make a post since that games OST wasn't that good but pairing that album with the game was beautiful. E.Y.E.'s dark gothic apocalyptic architecture blended perfectly with the dark, diabolic beats and lyricism from the group. It's been a while since I played it but there is one section in level 3(?) wherein you have to hold off waves of mutants. Pair that with "Nod Skwad" or "World of Darkness" and it's perfect. The album also featured video-game sampled songs like "Morty's Death Wish" and one of the most ominous and evil songs I have ever heard on "The Black Monk of Pontefact" with its use of bell samples and grumbles. The album ended up near the front of my 2017 list. There are very few releases with that kind of "darkness". 

Blvkmvgik / Blvck Mvgic (2018)

Flash forward to 2020. I hadn't been paying much attention to Labal-S' output. I bumped his album Lord of the Word with Beatahoe and it was good but it wasn't until I heard Blvkmvgik that he became one of my favourite rappers. First of all, the cover is beautiful. Okay, maybe it's not the best font but that picture of the reaper is awesome. I was playing a lot of You Are Empty and while that games soundtrack was almost non-existent this album made for a good soundtrack. Mystic Forces is by far the best track, sampling VGM and turning it into this cosmic onslaught of bars. At one point I had the entire track memorized. I even listened to a lot of it at work which is quite rare. It was just that good. Other highlights include the lyrical intense and cold "Wrexorcist" and that cinematic "Blvkmvgik". The album pairs really well with the theatre level in You Are Empty. 

The Last Upper (2020)

The first single for this record was Sativa Sunday featuring rapper Hus Kingpin. The single surprised me. I've mainly only heard Labal-S on dark and evil beats. To hear him on a jazzy, relaxed instrumental was unexpected. It was also suprising to see Lugerlex produced it. The track was remarkable with both emcees riding the beat perfectly. I had it on repeat for a few weeks until the record dropped. I listened to it around the same time as Blvkmvgik during my run of You Are Empty. The album as a whole has a bit of it all. It's got the jazzy songs like Sativa Sunday, cold and lonely chill tracks like Big Slang Theory and one of the angriest tracks I have heard Labal-S on, "The Last Upper". The album was amazing and if I did a 2020 list would be right at the top. The album ended with Labal-S declaring he would no longer be doing any downers (drugs) any more. The title track even ended up at number 8 in my Spotify top 100. 

Labal-S released another album in 2020 plus two EPs with Beatahoe but I haven't listened to them yet. Bloody Monk Consortium was working on a follow up to their 2017 LP and had released a few singles. I ended up coping CDs of both The Last Upper and Blvkmvgik and he was even kind enough to send some stickers. This past September I put one of the stickers up on one of the park tables near my place just for fun. Months later it's still there and it's almost like a memorial know. 

Live and be a legendary soul, Labal-S. 

"Burn heretics live at the stake, 
Salem witch trials, vampire Hellboy relate, 
Supervillain ape sapien, dark horse iron maiden, 
The God is a caught day(?), 
Project Ragnarok doomsday cult, 
What's up Padre? 
Lake and frog, ocular prosthesis,
The golden army, watch the thesis
It's draft(?) from Capcom.
Dhalsim stretch ya arm, 
Check the charm, read the message in palm, 
Electric pawn, read the septages(?) on(?),
Rosiecrucian Street Fighter Alpha sacrament confession, 
St. Francis exposes exorcists,"
~ Labal-S on Wrexorcist (2018)
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