Rhys Langston, a fixture of the Los Angeles underground rap scene, has long been recognized as a Stereogum Artist To Watch in 2022, and his output since then has stayed playfully dense, verbose, and layered. He released the album Pale Black Negative last year, and earlier this summer he linked up with R.A.P. Ferreira and nahhphet on “Sound Of Horns.” Now he is poised to drop a new LP titled to live and die in E.U.L.A., with two additional tracks already out in the wild.
So far, Langston hasn’t shared many specifics about to live and die in E.U.L.A. — not even what the acronym stands for. (If you consult Google, you’ll get “End-User License Agreement,” though that interpretation feels off. Either way, it makes for a neat reference to a William Friedkin classic.) On Bandcamp, Langston has posted the new songs “my grandmother’s pecan tree” and “it’s the fadeout…”—and they’re quite beautiful.
Both tracks on offer come with production from the rising beatmaker pty, and “my grandmother’s pecan tree” features Kwame Adu, a fellow LA-based underground rapper. The pair of songs feel serenely composed yet technically exact. You can dive into the poetic layers of Langston’s words, or simply allow yourself to be carried by his voice. Listen below.
