thePhantom*
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thePhantom*

Kansas City, Missouri, United States | SELF

Kansas City, Missouri, United States | SELF
Band Hip Hop EDM

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This band has not uploaded any videos
This band has not uploaded any videos

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"thePhantom*: The Night thePhantom* Stole Christmas"

Kemet "thePhantom*" Coleman, who announced his retirement earlier this year, is back like MJ, wearing the 4-5. His newest release, The Night thePhantom* Stole Christmas, cements the local rapper's position within Kansas City hip-hop's burgeoning avant-garde. His hypnotic delivery is far from Tech N9ne's scattered pontifications, but the album is a prime example of Tech's increasing local progeny: artists who gladly subvert expectations with independent work that champions the strange and esoteric over the radio-friendly. (As far as we know, it's also the city's first hip-hop holiday album.) The small six-track opus is an irreverent pastiche of the secular Christmas spirit: caroling, sleigh bells, and spaced-out hip-hop jingle atop ass-bouncing bass. "Christmas in Kansas City" provides listeners a holiday-inspired tour of the city: It's a Kansas City Christmas/8-1-6/And it's my city, I'm addicted/No conflicts. The last track, "Finally! (New Year's Is Here)," is a raving, cork-popping tribute to 2010 that would have Rudolph waving a glow stick in celebration. If thePhantom* has his way, Santa will be coming down from opiates instead of chimneys this holiday season. - The Pitch


"CD Review + Show Tonight: thePhantom, Destroy & Rebuild"

?Kemet Coleman, known in local hip-hop circles as thePhantom*, doubles as an Urban Studies student at UMKC. So it makes sense that Coleman gets academic on his newest album, Destroy and Rebuild. If he aspires to even higher learning, a doctorate in philosophy might suit Coleman's sensbilities.
The rapping college student is unrelentingly intellectual on each of the album's 18 tracks, creating a Dantean inferno of deep thought and abstract musings. Consider, for example, a few track titles: "Omega," "Zion," "From the Ashes" and "God's Music" are all evidence of a spiritual mind hard at work. Even Lucifer was an angel in heaven, Coleman reminds listeners on "Four Horsemen." He gets political over a strolling guitar on "Freeze": War is now peace/Soldiers are told fibs/Colors are now bleached/And the media feeds us chitlins of info/The feces of truth/The terrorists are kinfolk.

MP3: "Freeze"

Coleman's lyrics revel in postmodern ambiguity, but his avant-garde talent is clear. Even clearer is the talent of Glenn North, professor of English at UMKC and spoken-word artist, who partners with Coleman on "Story Through Beats." North turns Amiri Baraka on the track, merging the rhythms of hip-hop with the lifeblood of black history: Beats beat like black aspirations that deteriorate on the roots of my family tree. Less anarchistic than its title suggests, Destroy and Rebuild is instead an affirmation of intellectual expression through good music -- and a hip-hop head's fantasy of Heidegger set to dope beats. - The Pitch


Discography

"DeJa Vu" - 2005
"Release" - 2007 (iTunes)
"Re-Release: Sloppy Seconds" - 2008
"Phantastic Hummingbird Grooves for the Neo-Conscious Mind" - 2009
"Destroy & Rebuild" - 2009
"Bohemian Seductive Grooves for the Gay Soul" - 2010

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