RAMSON BADBONEZ - MIC DAY THE 13TH
With Ramson Badbonez already perfectly imitating the horror movie villain persona, the notion of an album directed around the horror movie premise happens to be something that I can get very excited for.
Mic Day The 13th sees a 12-track album that encapsulates everything that Badbonez tends to be about: demonstrating his superior rhyming capabilities through his raw UK-bred aesthetic, and his almost unmatchable multi-syllable rhyming. Following his most recent album, The Missing Joints, which saw it’s release just three months ago, my anticipation for a Badbonez project never lessens as I imagine what sort of lyrical murder my ears will be witness to.
Leading on from the Friday The 13th play-on and the Jason hockey mask on the album cover, it would have been blind of me to assume that this album wouldn’t continue the same horror movie theme. The album is introduced with Jason’s Journal, which sets the tone and atmosphere for the forthcoming songs awaiting to be played. Close your eyes and listen without context, and you are at the start of a horror scene where some dim-lit sketchy stuff was going down.
When Badbonez’s voice enters the first track, Haunted Houses, the grin on my face immediately lifts and my head starts bopping, as there’s no flow that warms your whole body just like this. That spooky halloween-vibe synth elevates the track to a whole new level, starting the album on a massive note.
Throughout the album Badbonez executes a pristine flow with a razor sharp deliverance, whilst also playing with some clever uses of known phrases and speech impediments. Stuttering Psychopath is a quintessential example of masterful lyric writing, he makes shorter sentence work with longer sentence’s through the use of stuttering his words, and extends syllables for longer in order to rhyme, so it appears, anything he chooses. The only track where the stuttering of words can get a huge round of applause and some jealousy and envy from other artists.
The track that stuns me with rapture is Face Down Floating, which was accompanied by a relevant and enthralling music video strung together by Rakugaki. None other than the legendary producer Jazz T comprised the beat: those loose hi hats and that down-right murky guitar brings that tension-building sombre atmosphere. Although, the slow-paced solemn instrumental is tipped on it’s head and thrown out the window when Badbonez enters: like a starving bear ravaging through a pet store.
This apparent theme of Badbonez’s raw and gritty delivery is highly visible throughout every track, forever keeping it real and dirty and it doesn’t seem like that’s going to change any time soon. Blue or Red Pill explores the bending of words to fit different rhyming syllables, reminding me of a 90s Eminem in a way, purely for his skill of rhyming words that shouldn’t rhyme on paper.
Ramson Badbonez is a name rooted firmly in the culture of hiphop here in the UK, and Mic Day The 13th is an exquisite example of those distinctive quick fire flows and raw deliveries that has given him the name that he has today. His ability to slaughter any beat with tongue-twisting bars and tactical punchlines is second to none, from the mysterious jazzy keys to the hard hitting bass lines, the gritty and murky atmosphere he brings to the table is hard to match with. Consistency. Grittiness. Potency. The three things innate in Badbonez.
Available now:
https://ramsonbadbones.bandcamp.com/album/mic-day-the-13th
Matt Knight
March 6th 2019