Nomad Carlos x Inztinkz - Blxvk Desert

Nomad Carlos and his Council comrades have long mixed rude boy attitudes with boom-bap aesthetics, but has it ever sounded so seamless? A far cry from the up-tempo anthems of reggae-rappers like Smif-N-Wessun, Blxvk Desert finds Nomad Carlos painting patois portraits of poverty and dejection across Inztinkz’s bleakly barren soundscape. If Clint Eastwood outlaw Josey Wales, dancehall deejay Josey Wales and Marlon James character Josey Wales were one, they might sound something like this.

Or how about "WWW" [Wild Wild West]? "If I had a dollar for every criminal act / Poverty stricken victims would be living relaxed," Carlos concedes in his opening bars. "Circumstances in a yard with a quell / Streets clean not a single sight of a shell / Is this a dream? But still..." What's next? Police shootouts, hopsital beds, surviving off meds, etc. Even when his gun bars shoot for gain, they're not glorified. They just point, shoot, kill, and keep it moving.

Nomad Carlos' Kingston roots could place him among that long lineage of Jamaica-influenced hip-hop artists, from Kool Herc to KRS One to Tek and Steele to Curly Castro and Soopah Eype. But this isn't that. It's more like what Prodigy was to the Queensbridge rap tradition: a colder, purer distillate.


Blxvk Desert was actually Nomad Carlos's 2nd release of 2019 following Cipher, which was produced entirely by London's Farma Beats. Both are available on CD via Bandcamp.