RESPECT. Premiere: CrimeApple - "Chepe" (Prod. by MichaelAngelo) - RESPECT.

Two beasts of the east come together to show out and remind listeners what that combination of dope emcee and fire producer sound like on “Chepe.”

If you keep your ear to what’s moving musically in hip-hop then you’re already familiar with the musical stylings of producer MichaelAngelo and CrimeApple’s Shade 45 freestyle, where the cat lets off for nearly nine-minutes in Showoff Radio with Statik Selektah, around this time last year. If you missed it, not only do you need to catch up but you need to get into their latest release, “Chepe.”

Within a few moments in to the song, you are transported into another era where reserved bravado was commended a lyrical capabilities reign supreme. After a couple of obligatory lines of shit talking, the bass kicks in on this buttery track and the east coast emcee smoothly demonstrates his ability to finesse a stellar beat. Through clever cadences, Crime has moments where he’s relentless in his multisyllabic delivery, while allowing brakes for the beat to breathe showing off MichaelAngelo’s genius orchestration. The artist’s effortless flow allow for a quiet confidence to shine through the joint with lines like, “If you love her, let her go, Dog/ I’ma take your girl farther.”

MichaelAngelo Executes the instrumental flawlessly, setting the tone with the perfect amount of percussion throughout. The ambience is set musically for “Chepe,” a Narcos nod, with it’s clear throwback themes of mafioso storytelling alá The Firm and Esco-era Nas.

The Bean town producer has had his foot in the game for a minute, starting over a decade ago. He’s worked with names like Primo Profit and Krumbsnatcha, citing most NYC producers as influences with a heavy emphasis on Nottz. His love for the genre goes back even farther saying, “I’ve always been into producing and beats since my older brothers were playing Public enemy and Wu-Tang and MC Eight around me but when I found out how they sampled and made beats out of all samples, drums and even snippets of just sounds from records, it blew me away.”

Be sure to keep an eye out for what’s next for MichaelAngelo, a track with Rochester’s own Rigz, but in the meantime, peep the dopeness at the top of the post.

MichaelAngelo Online:
Soundcloud: soundcloud.com/prodbymichaelangelo
BandCamp: ProdByMichaelAngelo.Bandcamp.com
IG: ProdByMichaelAngelo