Heems x Lapgan - LAFANDAR

After a six year hiatus, Himanshu “Heems” Suri wanders back toward rap, with his flow preserved in amber. “LAFANDAR” is a full-length collaboration with the Indian-American producer Lapgan, and finds Heems mangling cinematic South Asian samples with all the internal rhyme and laugh-out-loud wit fans remember from his past tapes, including with Das Racist and Swet Shop Boys.

The title is an old-country insult for a vagabond, one who is mischievous, adventurous, wayward—Heems casts the sprawling enclaves of Queens, New York as outsider hip-hop’s natural home, with new subsects, dialects, references and threats around every corner. On solo cuts like “Kala Tika” or collabs with cult legends like Kool Keith, Saul Williams, Quelle Chris and more, Heems' pen remains the point: a singular rap talent with a dozen other bafflingly interesting traits crammed into each stanza. - Matthew Trammell