Swet Shop Boys – “T5”
Swet Shop Boys are the duo of Indian American rapper Heems, formerly of Das Racist, and British Pakistani actor Riz Ahmed, who’s great in the new HBO miniseries The Night Of and who also raps under the name Riz MC. They put out one very promising EP back in 2014, and now they’re finally following it up with a debut full-length, on which the two MCs are joined by British producer Redinho.
Between Trump and Brexit, there’s a frightening amount of racism and anti-immigrant sentiment in the world right now, and Heems and Riz confront that directly with Cashmere. On the justifiably paranoid lead single “T5,” they both rap about all the very real shit that they have to deal with while flying around the world for work: “Oh no, we’re in trouble/ TSA always wanna burst my bubble/ Always get a random check when I rock the stubble.” Listen and find the album’s tracklist and cover art below.
Cashmere tracklist:
01 “T5″
02 “Shottin”
03 “Aaja”
04 “Zayn Malik”
05 “Tiger Hologram”
06 “No Fly List”
07 “Phone Tap”
08 “Half Moghul Half Mowgli”
09 “Swish Swish”
10 “Shoes Off”
11 “Din-e-llahi”
And here’s the album art:
Cashmere is out 10/14 via Swet Shop Boys’ own new imprint Customs. Pre-order it here.