Bay Area emcee Deuce Eclipse has been part of a lot of different projects over the years, but perhaps his most distinctive is the Latin rock/hip hop group he founded with Juan Manuel Caipo, Bang Data. They started the group about ten years ago, but it’s been a couple of years since we got an official release from them. Now, they come back with their best album to date, Loco.

Bang Data is a difficult group to describe sometimes, if only because their music isn’t easily defined. They tour as a four-piece band, but if you look at the credits on this album, we’ve got everything from horn players and congas to turntable scratching to guest emcees and vocalists to charango and cajon. It’s truly a hybrid sound that brings together hip hop, various forms of Latin dance music, and pop and rock as well. The album title takes it’s name from Deuce and Caipo feeling the intensity of the times we live in getting ramped up, and trying to make sense of it all and channel it through their music. On the title track, which features a great piano/sung hook, they talk about trying to just carve out some space for your own little life with family in friends while the world around you feels more hectic than ever. On “Furiosos,” we get some great political justice rap as Deuce Eclipse gives respect to Equipto (who also appears on the track) and the rest of the Frisco Five, who protested police brutality by going on a hunger strike in front of the San Francisco Police Department Mission Station in April of 2016. “Candy” takes an amped up cumbia style that’s reminiscent of Grupo Fantasma, and spins a tale about how immigration laws are tearing lovers and family apart. Where the album will really pleasantly surprise you is the inclusion of “Ya No Mas,” a song written and performed mainly on charango, a ten-string Peruvian instrument with sound similar to the ukulele, which tells the straightforward tale of a man realizing that he’s willing to stop fighting with his lover, because he knows there’s greatness in their future. It’s an incredibly sweet respite from some of the more intense material, and just expands their already hard-to-define sound. It should also be noted that with this album, you not only get lyrics that go back and forth between English and Spanish, you also get Deuce Eclipse moving back and forth between the rapping he’s become so well known for, but also some truly beautiful singing as well. Again, this group just does a little bit of everything.

Loco is a brilliant album from a group that seeks to make sense of a confusing world by making music that bridges together a lot of different styles. On top of all of the ambitious musical work that’s being done (and you can’t speak enough to how they are able to create this hybrid style and make it so pop friendly), there’s a message to the album that, while taking time to acknowledge all the very real struggles in the world, we can still make things better. This music is about building, and it starts with taking care of yourself and those immediately around you. It’s about “Together Force,” and it’s what makes Loco such a special album.