As witty as he is stylishly eclectic, Lelo is a walking billboard for the New Detroit. He crystallized that idea when he dropped his debut album, New Detroit, last summer, and he triples down for the city on Mastiff & Pink Tiles, a new double EP that pairs modern Detroit Rap aesthetics with the quirky exhilaration of Ghettotech. Aesthetic differences aside, the two discs are conjoined with the diverse musical soul of Lelo’s hometown. While he emerged in the modern Detroit Rap milieu, Lelo’s Ghettotech roots go just as deep –– he remembers hearing his uncles scratching on Ghettotech records in their basement. “I’d been living my life around it before I even knew what it was”, he says. “Ghettotech is very Detroit and it should never have strayed from where rap is”. On Mastiff & Pink Tiles, it’s more than just a neighbor — it’s a roommate.
For the first disc, which was recorded in one week before the second, Lelo continues his tradition of blending quippy wordplay with brooding beats that could soundtrack a midnight cruise down M-1. With Lelo’s wry wit and a gloomy bassline, “Monetize” sounds like a playboy’s rainy day. For “Dialect (B4 Effect)”, Lelo floats over a Nintendo synth line and twitchy lasers for an exhibition in fly guy shit talk. Understated and pristinely controlled, it’s all an exercise in relentless cool. For disc two, Lelo lets loose, which is something he admits he wasn’t quite ready to do in past releases. “I had real stuff going on”, he admits. “I wasn’t in a space to have fun.”
On tracks like the Ghettotech-infused “Get Geeked” on disc two, Lelo makes up for lost time, sliding over an adrenalized ’80s Synth-Pop sample and kinetic 808s for a record that will ring off from the club to the skating rink. Ditto for the rest of disc two, which is, in essence, a soundtrack to the best house parties Detroit’s ever had.
Whether it’s his customary D-Town raps or rapping over Ghettotech-infused beats, Lelo swirls fleeting thoughts and braggadocio with nuance and Barry Sanders-esque agility. And he never has to raise his voice. It’s just the latest dimension in his vision of New Detroit, a concept that’s evolved with his artistry. With Mastiff & Pink Tiles, that premise gets more expansive than ever. “For years, I wasn’t sure how to verbalize my vision for it”, he says. “But now I can say, 10 years from now, I want to look at my career as a big Welcome to Detroit sign”. Welcome to the city.
