Shamon Cassette and I first crossed paths at Computer Jay’s creative compound, The Space Hatch, a little over a year ago while I was recovering from a broken leg. He was there recording an Acid House anthem titled Raver’s Holiday; I was there for the atmosphere. We bonded over beats and leopard print hats. He had a great voice and an impeccable flow, but there was no way of knowing that after that first meeting he would soon set about creating a true school inspired concept album that Prince Paul would be proud of. That, and the fact that it’s accompanied by a fully envisioned fashion aesthetic born out of a psychedelic fever dream that would make George Clinton jealous.
There was no Covid (that we were aware of yet), and Quarantine was still a few months away. If necessity is the mother of all invention, then it’s definitely the artist’s muse. We all have found ways of coping with the isolation of quarantine. Shamon decided to search for buried treasure. While looking through boxes, Cassette came across a complete set of 1990 Score NHL player cards. Upon opening it he discovered that none of the players looked like him. Not a single one. Surprised? Hockey has always been a dominantly white game, but not knowing the current state of racial diversity in today’s league, he decided to do some research. What he went on to discover would lead him to create one of the most interesting projects I’ve come across in recent memory: a concept album that is as unexpected as it is well crafted, as easily enjoyed as it is provocative, and as educational as it is subversive.
Blades of Steel opens with its title track featuring the legendary Lo-Lifer, Thirstin Howl the 3rd and begins with a vocal sample recounting the history of the Colored Hockey League of The Maritimes. Founded by the sons and grandsons of escaped slaves who fled the states to Canada and built communities in Halifax, Nova Scotia, it was active from 1895-1925. The league has been credited with the 1st use of the slapshot, and goalies dropping to their knees to save shots. Based around the church, the league expanded into 8 different communities with over 400 players. It is with this revelation that the album proceeds to go about its business- beats, rhymes, and blocking the puck while staying out of the penalty box. That, and carving up thin ice with a roster of voices who have all showed up in shoulder pads ready to body check production.
The tip of a blade dug into ice anticipating the puck’s drop. Smooth, clean strokes over a frosty surface. Blood stains worn as badges of honor from repeated fist fights. The crunch of plastic and flesh driven into one another over frozen water molecules. These are the images that come to my mind when I think about ice hockey. Black faces? No. Hip Hop? No. Punk Rock aesthetics? Absolutely not.
I grew up in the south and never had an understanding of the game. We had a couple of teams in the region, but the sport never captured my imagination. It was the stuff of Disney movies, Canadians, and angry white New Englanders. For me and other hip hop heads, our relationship with hockey had very little to do with what happened on the ice but rather what was worn while they were slapping shots at the net. Pac rocking the Detroit Red Wings while spitting at reporters. Pimp C in the Mighty Ducks. Snoop sipping Gin and Juice in the coldest of Penguins. Jason Vorhese in the goalie mask. And, perhaps most importantly… Ghostface in the Jason Mask sippin’ rum out of Stanley Cups. “Unflammable!” Shamon Cassette’s most recent release, Blades of Steel, both honors this tradition while propelling it forward using everyone’s favorite reason to piss off their best friend in ‘87 cause you won’t stop interrupting the game to punch Gretzy in the face.
Cassette has been a citizen of the world since his inception. Growing up in Japan, he started rapping in his teens and was immediately embraced by the local Kanagawa Hip Hop scene. He’s bounced between New York, South Africa, Ireland, and Los Angeles creating music and art wherever and with whomever recognized his talent. Along his travels he amassed a network of like minded creatives that he has worked with in a variety of capacities over various points in his career. Enlisting the help of San Antonio based producer Jaz Infinite, Cassette set about assembling an international group of wordsmiths to actualize his vision of an album that uses the language of a traditionally white dominated game- that has yet to see the integration of other sports on any significant level and has a notoriously racist fan base to address and confront the contemporary global black experience.
South Africa shows up in the form of Spoek Mathambo. The Sub Pop signy, documentary filmmaker, and founder of ‘township tech’ appears alongside legendary Freestyle Fellowship founder Myka 9 on ‘Shoulder Pads’, a floating, up-beat, head knodder of true school production. Pugz Atomz, founding member of the legendary Narcobats and Chicago’s Englewood Arts Collective, Buddy Leezle, and Memphis Reigns play wings and defender to Cassette’s center on Penalty Box, the first track to fully expound upon Blades of Steel’s broader theme. ‘Behind The Mask’ features a verse from Slow Like Whoa, who is also an energy worker/healer/fragrance alchemist, that feels like she’s channeling Noname and Lauren Hill on The Score. There are repeated shout outs to Canada, especially Nova Scotia and Tim Horton’s, but it’s Annie Sama whose vocals help turn ‘Skate’ into a funky icecapade that fully brings our cousins from the north to the rink. And, of course, Los Angeles had to play an integral part seeing as this is where Blades was conceived. I was really happy to see verses from Like (Pac Div) and Myke Bogan on ‘React.’ I don’t really have anything more to say about that other than I’ve always fucked with pretty much everything either of these dudes have put out.
If not the most important, the most interesting and influential guest appearance is Chill E.B. The unfortunate collateral damage of the term “Rap Rock” is the obfuscation of when rap and punk rock were actually once very closely aligned. Chill E.B. is a raptivist who was signed to Jello Biafra’s (Dead Kennedys) Alternative Tentacles label, the original home to pre- Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy outfit the Beatnigs, who performed alongside Michael Franti & Spearhead. Chill E.B. was a cross-genre political activist in the same vein as Public Enemy and Paris, collaborating with and participating in the West Coast’s counterculture movement before Rage Against The Machine became the face of the sound. It is also purported that his song, Menace To Society, was at least partially, if not entirely, the inspiration for the movie of the same name.
He is also Cassette’s uncle, and the inspiration for his personal aesthetic. While his fashion sense is an ever evolving, nebulous endeavor, Cassette points directly to his close relationship with his uncle as an inception point. The place where the stitched on patches met the bucket caps. While most of today’s contemporary rap artists are channeling a stylists’ idea of a rock-n-roll (especially grunge) presentation, Cassette is creating the Nebula Hockey Legion marrying decades of anti-establishment sensibility with acid soaked wigs, horned facemasks and true school jerseys. As with the rest of the project, the entirety of Cassette’s experience- from his time in Japan to his relationship with his uncle to his world travels to his time in Los Angeles – is infused and then expressed through his creative process. In this case, it’s custom TUK’s Creepers fitted with roller skates and modified donated hockey gear instead of army jackets, berets and ninja boots.
Blades of Steel is all at once immediately listenable while holding depths and an afro futuristic reclamation of a hidden history that is channeled into an extended metaphor for what it means to be Black in America. By subverting expectations, both sonic and visual, Shamon Cassette has opened up a space that both challenges and invites. What could easily be dismissed as a gimmick bears weight upon scrutiny. He, Jaz Infinite, and their international cadre have created an alternate reality parallel to our own and invited us all to come skate with them. This is not thin ice.
