The Madison rapper’s second EP is being pressed up in a limited run of pink 12-inches.
For all the good hip-hop coming out of Wisconsin lately, artists understandably haven’t bothered that much with physical releases—this is an ecosystem of SoundCloud one-offs and mixtape sites, and record-pressing plants are backed up, not to mention the expense involved. But Madison rapper-singer Trapo’s She EP, released in March, is currently getting pressed up in a limited run of pink 12-inch records. The 750 copies are being manufactured through specialty record site Vinyl Me, Please, which will sell most of them through its member store, while Trapo will be selling some copies directly to fans. (Full disclosure: I wrote a thing once for VMP’s site, though I’m not a regular contributor, and a friend of mine, Andrew Winistorfer, edits VMP’s blog and sent me the information about this release.)
The release will also come with liner notes from currently Madison-based writer and rapper Michael Penn II (aka CRASHprez), who I should note has also written for Tone Madison. VMP is known for doing a rather extravagant subscription thing where limited-edition records come with special art and cocktail recipes—which would either be inappropriate or wildly inappropriate in this case, since Trapo is 18 years old but has made his share of songs about drinking—but the She release isn’t part of that series. VMP is a membership thing, but there’s a cheaper member tier that lets people just buy records from the member store without paying for the monthly subscription.
Trapo’s first proper release, last year’s The Black Beverly Hills EP, introduced him to listeners with a moody and narratively rich set of songs, leading many to note that the then 17-year-old artist sounded much older. She is also a conceptual EP, focusing on Trapo’s dealings with women, he shows his age a bit more-these are very much a young man’s reactions to romance, if still explored with depth and sonic variety. On opener “Never Run,” he talks about spilling his guts to a limo driver. On “Special/Therapy,” he wrestles with his ambivalence about a woman by telling her, “baby I can’t treat you special.” In the video for “She Moved On,” he burglarizes the house of his ex’s new boyfriend.
Trapo recently began playing with a live band, and is working on a new album to follow She. To buy the She vinyl through Trapo and his people, you’ll probably need to bug them through Facebook or Twitter. The vinyl goes on sale through VMP on June 16. Black Beverly Hills, meanwhile, is streaming in full on SoundCloud but doesn’t appear to be for sale even through digital outlets.
Read our interview with Trapo from December and listen to She below.
