New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Kojaque has unveiled "Wickid Tongues," a new preview of his debut album Town's Dead out June 25 on Soft Boy Records/Different Recordings. Read about Kojaque's inspirations for the song, which range from
Flying Lotus to the feeling of intoxicating love, via this Consequence ORIGINS feature that ran with the debut today: https://consequence.net/2021/05/kojaque-origins-wickid-tongues-stream/
"Wickid Tongues" was a demo that Kojaque worked on for quite some time, but after a night out drinking in London with Jess Smyth (Biig Piig), he recorded her freestyle singing with his laptop microphone on the spot. Although there were plans to re-record, the raw sound was the perfect touch needed to finish the song. On the track, the irish rapper/producer/artist mines his emotional interior and the external forces of a love triangle barrelling towards chaos, singing: "It's always trouble when tongues wicked as ours meet."
"It's about falling too deeply in love with someone a little too fast and how that can play with your head and make you paranoid. It can be quite hard to build trust early on in any relationship, if you're not careful I feel it's easy for your thoughts to run away with you and you become suspicious when there might not be anything wrong." - Kojaque
Kojaque is poised to have a breakout 2021. He's toured with slowthai and Lana Del Rey, performed at Glastonbury and Pitchfork Paris, made his COLORS debut this past summer, and the record label he co-founded has been the subject of its own Boiler Room documentary.
NME just posted an in-depth front-page profile that does a deep dive into the Irish rapper's feelings about his hometown, which significantly inspired his chaotic and intense debut album Town's Dead. Kojaque shares that "It's the people that I love, but the city and how it's structured and the institutions within it are appalling in a lot of senses," as he goes into detail about the renting crisis and homelessness there.
He also just shared the video for the album's title track. As with most of his videos, Kojaque served as director, was inspired by everything from 90s British film Remains Of The Day to Tyler, The Creators' "A BOY IS A GUN" video and it features his severed head, gleefully rapping. Watch "Town's Dead" here.
Kojaque first started writing Town's Dead when he was 19, and made it mostly on his laptop in his bedroom and on tour busses. From spewing rage to tender ruminations, he confronts a broken system, the out of control gentrification of Dublin, toxic masculinity, the loss of his father, and more, all in the pressure cooker claustrophobia of a hometown. It all unravels over an expansive 16-track concept album, documenting a tumultuous love triangle that unfolds across New Year's Eve.
"An unlikely force putting Dublin rap on the map" - Line of Best Fit
Pre-order Town's Dead (available on Digital, CD, 2LP, 2LP deluxe, & Cassette): https://kojaque.ffm.to/towns-dead
Town's Dead Tracklist:
1. Heartbreak
2. New Year, Who's This? (Interlude)
3. Town's Dead
4. Wickid Tongues
5. Shmelly
6. That Deep
7.
Black Sheep Part I
8. Rover
9. Jinty Boy Blues
10. No Hands
11. Part II
12. Sex N' Drugs ft. Celia Tiab
13. Fallin For It
14. Coming Up
15. Casio ft.
Maverick Sabre
16. Curtains.
