SPITTIN' FIRE

posted in: Artist FeaturesUrban

Where the streets have no name: Wordspit

Where the streets have no name: Wordspit

Like a lot of rappers out there, Brooklyn-born Wordspit didn’t grow up behind a white picket fence. With a drug-addled mother and a hustler/musician father, his childhood was anything but idyllic. Writing became comfort, then the basis for a career. But if your first introduction to Wordspit was Joystick Madness, you’d have no inkling that there were any skeletons in his closet. Eight-bit bleeps provide the back beat of the song, which is basically an homage to the arcade delivered at warp speed. It’s often hard to catch exactly what Wordspit is saying; his delivery is that fast. But when you do, you’ll be impressed by his knack for clever metaphors. As he wages battle with the joystick, his video opponents see stars like Hollywood Boulevard and lose energy like Enron. Come on, that’s pretty funny.

It isn’t until Chop Suey, a remix of the System of a Down hit, that Wordspit’s demons emerge. These are more than just words, he raps tremulously. This is my pain, my fight. For all the fast talk about video games and school day nostalgia, Wordspit doesn’t try to hide his depth. And for that he gets the high score.

Signatures_KateB