Victor D. Infante
| Telegram & Gazette
With “Mysterious Maiden,” Worcester rappers K’Nen and Jafet deliver a moody, at times smoldering love letter to hip-hop. It’s an interesting song, because usually, when rappers deliver that sort of thing, it’s filled with swagger and braggadocio. When rappers proclaim their love for hip-hop, they tend to do it loud. Not so with K’Nen and Jafet, who etch out a quieter musical space for their musical affection, one which allows them to take the obligatory shots at the industry, but also leaves them room to convey the slow burn of how the music moves them.
The song, which includes some adult language, is part of a collective album with local rappers Danny Fantom and Giankno under the collective name, Stanton Capitol Recordings.
“Ain’t no music slapping rappers since Sean P. passed on,” raps K’Nen, referring to the highly regarded rapper Sean Price, who sometimes performed as Ruckus. “Industry made the thing we love a gimmick to trash on/my pain to the words so I drag on/Wishing for something to keep me hopeful like you waiting on dad calls.”
K’Nen has a stutter punch rap style, jabbing the end stresses of lines hard, creating a jagged, pugilistic effect. By contrast, Jafet tends to curl the end of his verses, creating a flow that carries the listener from lyric to lyric. “There ain’t no real murder music since Prodigy passed on,” raps Jafet, referencing another late rapper, “One of the last Dons to keep it thorough in rap songs … Later they’ll catch on,/when fame and the cash gone/The industry is ran by the puppeteers,/It’s a love affair/couple of co-signs and some gold shine your in the upper tier/Less to do with talent when connected like drug career.”
A contempt for the record industry is nothing new in hip-hop, nor are proclamations of pursuing music for the art. What’s different here is how, underneath that, the pair manage to convey a sense that the music has an ephemeral hold on them, that pursuing rap is not necessarily a choice. That’s a familiar sentiment to anyone in the arts, but it’s rare to hear it in this sort of context, and almost never with such a sense of ashen resignation.
“We do this (expletive) for hip-hop,” they each refrain at the chorus, before filling out the rest of the verse with different lyrics. K’Nen, for example, raps, “It’s my soul we used to play the ciphers off the tip-top til dawn/Yeah, baby, I’m gone.” Later, Jafert finishes out the verse rapping, “It’s in my soul until/I’m old,/won’t ever fold or flip-flop,” before he, too, concludes with, “I’m gone/yeah, baby, I’m gone.”
The video, shot by Worcester artist Onixovii, captures the moodiness in black and white and reflections of urban beauty, headlights cascading off darkened highways and, incidentally, yet another sighting of the Worcester WooSox logo in a Worcester hip-hop video. It’s a beautiful video, in its way, one which connects to the song, searching streets for that ineffable thing that makes hip-hop burn in the soul.
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