The recent release of Aesop Rock’s ninth full-length solo studio album, Integrated Tech Solutions, makes this the perfect time to shine a light on the best rapper you’ve never heard of. With just over one million monthly listeners on Spotify, he is often overshadowed by the giants of the rap game, including the similarly named but unrelated A$AP Rocky.

But Aesop Rock has been putting in work since the 90s, self-funding his first two releases before he even graduated college, and building a devout cult following along the way.

Born Ian Bavitz in a sleepy Long Island town in 1976, he would go on to release an impressive body of work. Including those nine solo studio albums, several EPs and singles, soundtracks for movies and video games, a plethora of guest tracks, as well as numerous collaboration albums. Two notable collabs are the duos, Malibu Ken, composed of Aesop Rock and electronic musician TOBACCO, and Hail Mary Mallon, which released two albums featuring Aesop Rock and fellow rapper, Rob Sonic.

New York’s influence is apparent in Aesop’s work, citing groups like Boogie Down Productions, Public Enemy, and Run DMC as his earliest rap influences. But he credits his older brother Chris for introducing him to rock acts like Dead Kennedys, Fugazi, and Ministry. This diverse influence can be felt in the uniqueness of his tracks and his collaboration with artists outside of the genre. New York is also where he met his long-time collaborator, producer, and friend, Blockhead.

Aesop Rock is famous (or infamous) for his lyricism.

While his critics say he is too verbose, even going so far as to say his lyrics are incomprehensible, I have to disagree. Though they aren’t without some merit.

According to a study by data scientist Matt Daniels, where he calculated the number of unique words in the first 35,000 words of the most famous rappers, Aesop Rock had used 7392 unique words. That put him almost 1000 unique words above the legendary GZA of Wu-Tang fame and over 2000 unique words above Shakespeare. However, using many words does not necessarily make for good lyrics. 

Aesop’s powerful command over his extensive vocabulary lets him weave metaphors and imagery rich with pop culture and mythology on top of complex internal rhyme schemes. His most popular song, “None Shall Pass,” the titular track of his 2007 album, is a prime example of his lyricism. The opening lines of the song manage to evoke the social disparity and discontent during an age of frightened uncertainty where wealth is flaunted as the masses are struggling to survive. All in just 14 words.

“Flash that buttery gold, jittery zeitgeist wither by a watering hole, what a patrol,”

Not all his songs are so densely metaphorical.

In his catalogue, you will find his retelling of witnessing a baseball coach brutally kill a gopher with a bat, a song about his cat, “Kirby,” and a children’s story about a frog called “Long Legged Larry,” just to name a few. You will also find many deeply personal accounts from Aesop’s life and his struggles with isolation, identity, and loss.

One heart-wrenching track for any artist is “Rings” from the 2016 album The Impossible Kid, where Aesop laments his lost practice of sketching and painting, saying,

These all stand as examples to the critics of his more poetic tracks that Aesop’s grasp of language allows him to tell the stories he wants to tell. No matter how complex, or simple. Aesop puts it best himself, stating in an interview when asked about the criticisms of his lyrics being nonsensical, “you’d have to be an idiot to not at least grasp a few things from these songs. Or have had no interest in pulling anything from them in the first place.”

Aesop has proven that you don’t have to fit into the mainstream to be successful. If you are passionate about your work, your audience will find it, and it will be all the more impactful.

And maybe now you’ve just heard of your new favourite rapper.

Alex is a second year student in the Algonquin Professional Writing program, but if you are here you probably already guessed that. 

He’s got a bass collecting dust in his closet so he’s a huge fan of Rush’s gnarly bass lines and lyrics about quests for the fountain of youth and riding a spaceship through a blackhole to mythical ancient Greece. 

But since he’s from Halifax he can’t help himself sing along and stomp his foot to Barrett’s Privateers if it hits his salty ears.