Oso Negro is an emcee from Pensacola, Florida. We last heard from him back in April of 2017, when he released an EP with Boise producer Weighn Beats called Werebear. Now he teams up with a producer from Taos named PH8 to drop a new EP, called Glory and Gory Stories.

What the title of this EP means is that you’re getting seven songs with tales about power and corruption. By this, I mean that Oso Negro is taking more of an abstract philosophical approach to the subject matter, asking questions about the nature of humans and why people take this route so often. He does all of this with a versatile flow, which allows him to match up with all the different looks that PH8 is throwing with the production. PH8 might not be a name that you’re familiar with, but one listen to this EP and you’ll definitely want to know more about him. The beats absolutely bang, but they also come from several different directions. He can hit you with a reggae-inspired beat such as on “Wood Eye,” he can hit you with the big boom bap drums on “Trajectories,” he can hit you with some classic rock guitar on “The Chortlers,” or he can come in with some psychedelic British Invasion-sampling backpack hip hop. It’s all on the table. When you add it all together, you get an EP that features two artists with great chemistry, making a varied project that absolutely bang, and with a theme to tie it all together and give you some food for though. You can’t ask for too much more than that.

Glory and Gory Stories is a great way to start off the year. It looks innocuous enough on paper, but Oso Negro and PH8 pack a lot into a small package and make this EP count. If you don’t already know about these two, get familiar.