Consumer Guide Album

Heems/Lapgan: Lafandar [Veena Sounds, 2024]
"How does my accent sound when I'm crying?/How does my accent sound when I'm dying?" the Flushing-raised Punjabi-American half of Wesleyan-spawned rap legends Das Racist wants to know. Aiming his first album in seven years at a novelty market so callow it "wasn't born when I saw those buildings vanish kid"--and to be clear, said buildings were the twin towers, their collapse all too visible from Stuyvesant High School, to this day one of the choicest public education venues in the five boroughs. His rhymes so smart and funny if not therefore so coherent, his flow making the most of its own race-specific New York accent, Heems remains a pleasure to hear. I doubt either Stuyvesant or Wesleyan can figure out what to make of him, and sometimes I'm not so sure what I make of him myself. But he was always fun and still is. A-