Ghais Guevara has never been one to conform to any specific framework of hip-hip, to any genre for that matter. His music is abrasive, aggressive, intelligent, and spiked with a righteous fury – a perfect cocktail to fight back the banality of modern music. On his forthcoming debut album, Goyard Ibn Said, he continues this line of radical musical thought, which he first began to mold on previous mixtapes, including 2021’s BlackBolshevik and 2022’s There Will be No Super-Slave.
On his newest single, “The Old Guard is Dead”, Guevara cements his status as a musical alchemist, layering wild samples across a voice that stretches and contorts to fit around the edges of these deconstructed sonic snapshots. It’s a maximalist wonderland, filled with unidentifiable sounds and beats that warp and become elliptical. He revels in pulling apart the various lineages of rap music and remaking them in his own image. It’s good to hear that he hasn’t shifted from the rhythmic wizardry he conjured on earlier releases, and that he continues to disregard any expectations we might have had.
“Restriction always breeds innovation, and this song is an example of that,” says Guevara. “The lack of sample options at my disposal forced me to work with unfamiliar songs, sounds and flows. The result is me and my navy storming the pier, the citizens look in fear because they know we won’t be leaving.”
Listen to the song below.
Ghais Guevara’s new album, Goyard Ibn Said, is due out Jan 24 via Fat Possum. Follow him on X and Instagram.
