• FEARCE & BEAN

Well, now that that's all done... back to the drone wars—and our own federally investigated police department, which is, incredibly, hoping to initiate unmanned SPD drones over our streets. (The real challenge here: How are they gonna program them to say racist slurs to handcuffed suspects?) I know you're already paranoid from smoking your now-legal weed, but I just thought you should know. Other things you should know as follows:

Dyme Def's Delta Force, that is to say Fearce and Bean, headline Nectar on Saturday, November 17—and the Coup do the same at the Crocodile. I recently peeped that new Coup album, Sorry to Bother You, as well as the new album from another outspoken, revolutionary hiphop crew, Dead Prez (Information Age, presumably not named for that Based God song). Both groups are using new sounds to get their message across: Dead Prez, a truly disturbing, low-rent euro-club synth sound familiar to anybody listening to the radio. The Coup, a plucky, fuzzy, Afropunk-funk approach that was foreshadowed on 2006's Pick a Bigger Weapon. The DP joint is, on first (and likely only) listen, totally unpalatable and pandering, even if their messages are intact—but no sound could be a worse fit than what they've chosen on Information Age. By contrast, Sorry to Bother You mixes on-point geo-local-sociopolitical raps from Boots Riley with wailing, jumpy, Fishboney, Madness-esque funk-rock and West Coast new wave—a tall order, but they pull it off, with help from no less than Killer Mike, Das Racist, Vernon Reid, and Japanther (!).

On Sunday, November 18, you got People Under the Stairs at Neumos, and the Odd Future R&B of the Internet at the Crocodile. PUTS's dependable, low-key house party boom-bap connects mightily to their legions of fans and promises a good time—plus you got Kublakai and Luke Rain, so there's that. The Internet's Syd the Kyd and Matt Martians, however, specialize in black weirdo lover's rock, hazy, pilled-out indie soul that promises zero "when I say HIP..." so go for what you know.

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