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1.
Cadence Weapon
Breaking Kayfabe.
The title of the album is wrestling slang for breaking character, and in that Cadence Weapon aka Rollie Pemberton succeeds. There is no gansta posturing on his album; it is just about Cadence Weapon, take it or leave it. His debut is a masterful blend of rap and indie sensibilities. Pemberton is a former writer for Pitchfork, the website-for-all-things-indie, so it is no coincidence that Kayfabe has gained a strong following in the blogsphere on blogs just as likely to write about Bloc Party or Uffie as Cadence Weapon. This is all pretty cool considering Pemberton has done this all from his hometown, Edmonton, Alberta. Kayfabe is so surprisingly good that it nearly won the first Polaris Music Prize—it was narrowly defeated by Final Fantasy’s He Poos Clouds. Key tracks include “Black Hand,” “Sharks” and “Oliver Square”—who knew Edmonton could get so ghetto?
Scott Wood
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