“The Heaviest Cross,” perhaps YC The Cynic‘s most anthemic track to date, just got a thorough revitalizing. Originally appearing on last year’s GNK, YC’s lamentation gets a full face lift, and becomes an individual, if blood-related song all its own. Come for Homeboy Sandman‘s rapid fire verse where he, like YC on the original, takes aim at doubters and detractors, and even goes at some of the hipsterish superiority felt by his own fans. Stay for YC’s startling final act: “6’1” in the middle of life, we die young, dodge guns in the city of lights / The light’s off so the mice roam any and all, and pythons don’t bark so the bigger the bite.” The distortion on YC’s voice turns him to a warped, poetic reporter, coming live from the from the disarray of Hunts Point and the disenfranchised as a whole.
We talked to YC about the track, and he told us that Sandman wound up on “The Heaviest Cross” because “[Sandman] took to that song the most…I think he instinctively went more personal, content-wise.”
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