The last time we heard from the do-it-all artist known as Rabbi Darkside was in April of 2018, when he paired up with Mr. Simmonds as part of the group The Hues Brothers, who released their album Radioactivity. Now he’s come back with a short solo project, A Skeleton at a Typewriter.

A Skeleton at a Typewriter was born out of an experiment with the creative process at the beginning of the year. For this project, Rabbi Darkside tried a period of self-reliance, creating his own studio where he could produce beats, write, and record all by himself. In one month, he had created 40 beats to rhyme to, and set about writing at the peak of that creativity, responding to a lot of current situations that were on his mind. The result is an EP that might be short in length, but powerful in the strength of creativity, intellect, and emotion contained therein. Purely from a technical standpoint, he’s putting on a clinic as an emcee, showcasing a number of different flows and lyrical structures over the course of six songs. He’s also finding a good balance in his production between some classic sample-based boom bap and some minimal techniques that help shift the rhythm into less typical patterns, which in turn force him to switch up his flow. Ultimately, though, what makes this EP special is the lyrical content. We get a couple songs of personal reflection, talking about the creative process, politics, philosophy and beyond. We also get a humorous song in “Post Post Malone,” which features the hook of “Mother Fuck Post Malone,” but you also get some really clever lyricism about our shifting relationship with technology. The most urgent song on the EP comes on “Ayo White Folks,” a call out of white people everywhere to educate themselves, recognize their privilege, and to listen and respect those who don’t look like them.

Rabbi Darkside gave us a great year-end release in A Skeleton at a Typewriter. It’s well-produced and well-written, with a lot of heart, humor, and intelligence. Don’t sleep on this one.