Aesop Rock : Integrated Tech Solutions

I’m probably the last guy to be talking about hip hop and rap music. I feel gravely underqualified to discuss beat making, rap producers, rap styles, and flow. In high school I was intimidated by rap music. I felt like you had to possess a certain amount of confidence and bravado to be able to “get” hip hop and rap, two things I lacked in spades. So I listened to rap-adjacent rock; bands like Red Hot Chili Peppers, Urban Dance Squad, early Faith No More, Infectious Grooves, and John Lydon sing/barking with PiL.

Eventually I got out of that rut of feeling as if I wasn’t cool enough for rap and got into bands like A Tribe Called Quest, Beastie Boys, De La Soul, and House of Pain. I realized that there were others like me that had no confidence and bravado, but rap music helped them find it within them. I’m still looking for bravado, but at almost 50-years old I’ve got enough confidence to get by.

Aesop Rock came out of the New York underground/alternative rap scene in the late 90s/early 2000s, releasing early albums on Definitive Jux which was run by friend and fellow rapper El-P. Much like El-P, his style feels put together with old synths and drum machines and his rapping is epic in wordplay and density. As the years have gone on Aesop Rock has refined his production to a well-oiled machine, but it still retains that fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants quality which I love.

On Aesop Rock’s latest album, the dense and epic Integrated Tech Solutions, Aesop, aka Ian Bavitz, leans into all his rap superpowers to give us one of the best hip hop albums of the year. Clunky beats, intelligent lyrics, and a nod to the 80s computer world that feels both a bit nostalgic and a bit dystopian.

The album opens with “The ITS Way” which sounds like an instructional Betamax tape for some early 80s computer company battling it out with IBM and Microsoft. We then drop into the hard and heavy “Mindful Solutionism”, a feat of jagged production and razor tongue delivery. A mix of old school and retro-futurism with that Aesop Rock magic. “Infinity Fill Goose Down” keeps that vibe going, bringing to mind the heyday of early Def Jux, Cannibal Ox, and Company Flow. There’s even a sample in the chorus that sounds like El-P, though I’m not sure if that’s the case.

“Living Curfew” opens on a wonky analog synth sound with a Middle Eastern feel. New York-based rapper Billy Woods guests with equal vocal dexterity, dropping a verse comparing Fentanyl addicts to zombies. “Kyanite Toothpick” features Hanni El Khatib with his smooth, early Snoop Dogg flow.

Over the course of 18 tracks on an hour long album Aesop Rock hits up everything from Scooby Doo’s Velma to Brian Eno to R.E.M. to cholesterol levels and there’s never a lull. Integrated Tech Solutions is an engaging and blistering rap album that feels urgent and significant at every turn. One of the best albums of the year.