Audiopile Review: There are a lot of good rappers out there, and in the internet age, it can be overwhelming trying to parse through the talent. But when an artist has something important to say, and they manage to stick the landing on all fronts to get their message across, that’s when you know you have a true underground hip-hop gem on your hands. “Permanently Blackface (The 1st Expression)” is one of these cases. Lukah has been a consistent presence in the scene over the past few years, and his 2023 release nearly slipped past us when it first dropped digitally. Fortunately, we are in the know now. Lukah has proven to be a master of the art of storytelling, channelling the gritty observational tone of Nas alongside the personal and politically minded pen held by Kendrick Lamar. It’s easy to draw comparisons to the conscious hip-hop found in much of “To Pimp A Butterfly,” both in tone and execution. He has crafted a deeply conceptual piece of work, its sights aimed at the deeply ingrained racism running throughout our past and present. Eerie piano-heavy boom-bap beats reminiscent of classic Wu-Tang anchor this thought-provoking incendiary record, utilized in a new context that will likely please those hankering for a dose of that now-classic Griselda sound, itself a throwback to a grittier era. Throughout this album, Lukah sounds hungry, with a lot to say as he rides these beats with deep-felt intent. Jazzy beats and touches of big band swing effectively bring Lukah’s vision to life, taking us back in time to show how little things have changed. Purposeful and crafted with ambition and drive, we are definitely eager to see where Lukah goes from here.

Written and recorded in a firestorm of creativity during the mastering phase of Lukah’s upcoming double LP with Real Bad Man, Permanent Blackface is a monstrous vignette displaying the true power of Lukah’s songwriting and the technical brilliance of his team. The album flashes before you like a lightning strike illuminating a barren cityscape.

Introducing himself as Mr. Blackface, Lukah identifies the true artist’s responsibility to hold a mirror to the listener in order to confront and disarm taboos. In both content and music, the record balances vulgarity and introspection, the horror of silence, and the comfort of colossal, discordant sound. Over 12 songs the celestial, often blood-soaked color palette of soul and R&B that gave emotional weight to Why Look Up and Raw Extractions has been scraped away like a charred skeleton. With a small cast of voices consisting entirely of Lukah’s immediate family, and production duties handled in-house by WALZ, Deener, Hollow Sol, Cities Aviv, SB11, and Lukah himself, the record has the intimacy of a theater production. The only voices present are Lukah, joined by his mother providing scat vocals, and his grandfather discussing the Jungian self-hatred of the colonial project and its terrifying repercussions for contemporary Black Americans, with a fitting invocation of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. The beats here are reminiscent of noir, 78rpm swing and big band, evoking the underlying horror of a pre-Civil Rights movement America, where segregational binaries inverted folk tales through the white terror of ghosts, the black “spook”, and mythic themes of fate and free will. The whiplash of shifting perspectives keeps your head on a swivel in way only Lukah’s superior pen can elucidate. Will it trigger anger that first voice you hear on Permanent Blackface is Judy Garland singing “Sweet Chariot”? But isn’t this just Lukah speaking through her, announcing he’s got “The South in his mouth”? As the internet endlessly debates intention and appropriation in our artistic history, the insignificance of this small sample is put into perspective: another white pebble in a black ocean of Lukah’s creation. “If the sun don’t shine today / pray the sun come out tomorrow…pray the sun pierce through the sorrow”

The album introduces an unnamed character beset by disposition. As the story’s scope increases, the gaze of the mirror shifts. How would white society feel if historical roles were reversed? How does a presumed white listener experience the trauma of interacting with police?