As hip-hop approaches its 40th birthday, there are some who would conclude that rap music is currently undergoing its midlife crisis. As the music has grown in worldwide popularity, the need for its beats and rhymes to keep the party going has grown with it, temporarily displacing those scribes who can’t help but speak truth to power. Perhaps this is where an emcee like Revol’Angelo comes in. Clocking in at a densely-packed 30 minutes, 1st Communique of A r.e.v.o.l bridges together eight songs on either side of an interlude, and it’s that short bit in between the songs that makes this artist’s political and musical agenda quite clear. As sirens blare and an amplified voice charges Revol’Angelo with “poisoning minds of the youth,” the general public is told to “move away from the music.” This is bound to happen when you’re one half of a duo that works under a name like The Weather Underground.

Hailing from hip-hop’s birthplace of The South Bronx, Revol’Angelo seeks to marry the lyrically potent side of hip-hop with the aurally audacious sounds of dubstep, creating an interesting niche that morphs into a deadly sub-genre of its own. “Black Roses (Intro)” begins with sound bites discussing members of the Black Panther Party, further solidifying this release’s political leanings before cracking through the sound barrier with razor sharp bass lines and angular acid stabs over half-time drum programming. Revol’Angelo’s flow on the microphone is nimble and calculated, his verbal runs often occurring at twice the speed of the music underneath him. Chemist Productions along with Exoduz (the other half of The Weather Underground) create beats as dirty as the political landscape that our fearless emcee rails against, using gunshots for kick drums that ricochet off wafer thin claps on “Total Recall.” As growling chords threaten to tear holes in sub-woofers, Revol’Angelo skips the formalities and heads straight towards the ugly truths of American society. (“When Martin Luther King got parts of him filled with lead, all we got was a monument.”)

Things get really interesting when the production shifts in structure, allowing for more seductive harmonies to creep in underneath the verses. “Rebel In The Morning” is sleek, futuristic funk with syrupy synthesizer licks, rolling through the city at two miles an hour while Revol’Angelo observes the similarities between Fox News and CNN as well as children that know more about Nicki Minaj than arithmetic. Even while pulling the coattails of those who have their priorities out of order (“The future keeps on calling, you busy though”), he makes it sound so good to step hard to the Left. When he sings “Another morning I’m waking up as a rebel and I thank the Lord,” rarely has anarchy sounded so funky. “RevolA” makes great use of a sparse rhythmic structure comprised of light electronic chords and percussive hits that resemble a series of clicks and power locks. Contemplative verses pour from the speakers in free thought fragments, referencing COINTELPRO, Fred Hampton, tapped phones, and faith in the midst of injustice.

The absence of a beat on “Misha” is immediately noticeable as Chemist Productions chooses to wrap Revol’Angelo’s memories of a girl in London in sensitive piano improvisations and warm, dreamy ambiance. It’s one of the most striking selections on the release and a complete 180 from the closing track. In contrast, “Fallout” is unbridled aggression, the undeniable anthem that celebrates the continuous grind of revolutionary underdogs. As classical motifs transform into their industrial twins, bass wobbles land squarely on the listener’s ears after the drop lands and jagged frequencies threaten to swallow the track whole. Exoduz’s production work on this one is simply ferocious and brings the album to a fitting, explosive end.

Suggesting what might happen if Chuck D or Immortal Technique ever teamed up with Skrillex or Noisia, Revol’Angelo’s latest may be considered an acquired taste within the world of hip-hop, but it’s a release that won’t be ignored.


Artist: Revol’Angelo
Album: 1st Communique Of A R.E.V.O.L
Reviewed by Jason Randall Smith
Rating: 4 stars (out of 5)
- Jason Randall Smith

Political rap didn’t start in the late 1980s or early 1990s; hip-hop first took the sociopolitical plunge with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s groundbreaking “The Message” back in 1982. But it was during the late 1980s and early 1990s that political rap really hit its commercial peak with agitators like Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions (BDP), Ice-T and Ice Cube. In 2013, unfortunately, political hip-hop doesn’t have the visibility that it had back in the day. However, there are still talented political rappers out there speaking their minds; you just have to know where to find them. And East Coast rapper Revol’Angelo addresses some political subject matter on his self-released CD, 1st Communique of A .r.e.v.o.l.

Revol’Angelo is from the South Bronx, an area that has tremendous importance to hip-hop. Many of the pre-Run-D.M.C., pre-LL Cool J rappers of the late 1970s and early 1980s (that is, MCs from the Grandmaster Flash/Melle Mel/Kurtis Blow/Treacherous Three/Spoonie G era) came from Harlem or the South Bronx. And it was in the South Bronx that KRS-1 met the late Scott La Rock in the mid-1980s and formed Boogie Down Productions (BDP). But the influences one hears on “Total Recall,” “Radical Republican,” “Rebel in the Morning” or “Black Roses” are not strictly South Bronx influences. Instead, 1st Communique of A.r.e.v.o.l. is directly or indirectly influenced by political rappers far and wide, whether they came from the Bronx, Long Island or the West Coast. And Revol’Angelo often mentions important figures from the civil rights movement, including Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and members of the old Black Panther Party of the 1960s and 1970s. And it’s good to see an MC as young as Revol’Angelo carrying on the political hip-hop tradition.

According to his publicity bio, Revol’Angelo was born in New York City in 1989 (which would make him 23 or 24 in 2003). In other words, he is young enough to be KRS, Chuck D or Ice-T’s son. Revol’Angelo was a year away from being born when BDP’s By All Means Necessary and Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back came out; he was seven years away from being born when Flash’s “The Message” came out. And his influences aren’t strictly hip-hop influences. There are elements of alternative rock as well as European electronica on “Radical Republican,” “Fallout” and “Total Recall.” Sometimes, he sounds a bit like Articolo 31, a rock-influenced political rap group from Italy that was never well known in the United States but was popular in Europe in the 1990s (although unlike Articolo 31, Revol’Angelo doesn’t rap in Italian)

Much of 1st Communique of A .r.e.v.o.l is loud, intense, forceful and aggressive; Revol’Angelo believes in bringing the noise, as Chuck D and Public Enemy said. But the native New Yorker chills out on “RevolA” and “Misha,” both of which sound relaxed in comparison to the hard-driving selections that come before them on this CD. “Misha,” in fact, is a departure from the angry political outlook that dominates 1st Communique of A .r.e.v.o.l “Misha,” instead, has a jazzy alternative rap vibe, bringing to mind Philadelphia-based alternative rapper Kuf-Knotz and some of the alternative rappers who came before him (such as Digable Planets, A Tribe Called Quest, the Pharcyde and De La Soul). “Misha” finds Revol’Angelo fantasizing about an attractive woman he meets on a trip to London, and the tune is quite evocative. The listener can easily picture Misha walking around the streets of Soho, Earl’s Court or Oxford Circus or heading into a Tube station to get on the District Line or the Piccadilly Line. Revol’Angelo vividly brings the character Misha to life and makes her sound like a very interesting Londoner.

Listening to 1st Communique of A .r.e.v.o.l, one gets the impression that Revol’Angelo’s best work is yet to come. But this is a respectable, nicely executed effort, and again, it is good to see a rapper his age embracing the time-honored tradition of political hip-hop.

Revol’Angelo
1st Communique of A.r.e.v.o.l.
Review by Alex Henderson
3.5 stars out of 5 - Alex Henderson