Marlowe is the collaborative alt-rap project from Seattle-based hip-hop producer L'Orange and North Carolina-based rapper Solemn Brigham. The duo specialise in politically charged, quickfire vocals, spat over dusty, vinyl samples. Something of an outlier in modern hip-hop, BBC 6 Music described their 2020 album Marlowe 2 as “one of the most astonishing albums of the year”.
Support comes from Otis Mensah. Fresh from his stint as Sheffield’s poet laureate, Otis combines alternative hip-hop with spoken word poetry. Wordplay Magazine described him as “arguably the most productive rap-poet working under lockdown right now. Otis’s sound is a distinct one, with an unbridled stream of consciousness over low-pressure beats; he describes it as a sub-genre of alternative hip hop, namely: “Art-Rap”. “
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