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CMU Approved
Approved: Shirt
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 9 January 2018
New York rapper Shirt has built underground success with a series of album and EP releases over recent years. Now signed to Jack White’s Third Man Records – the first rapper to do so – he is set to release new album, ‘Pure Beauty’, on 9 Feb.
The new record is inspired by American conceptual artist John Baldessari, whose artwork will feature on the vinyl release of the album. Shirt is also currently completing a masters degree in fine art, but his work as a rapper is not what you might think based on this. There’s a rawness to his delivery, with beats that come in hard. His lyrics are often thoughtful and his homages to Baldessari are there if you want to look, but there’s an immediate, infectious pull from his music that comes without deep investigation.
For the video to accompany new single ‘Flight Home’, he performs travelling around New York on top of a truck bearing his often used Nike Adidas logo – another thing that can be taken on various levels, from simple appropriation to considered art. You can ponder that for a while or just check out what’s going on above it.
Watch the video for ‘Flight Home’ here:
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