Sleep Sinatra is an artist from Lincoln, Nebraska who has been releasing music for about the last eight years. In that time, he’s been fairly prolific and he’s collaborated with a lot of different artists, including August Fanon, Killer Kane, Stik Figa, and Bloodmoney Perez, just to name a few. His most recent release came this past December, when he gave us the album, In God’s Image. Now he’s back with a collaborative album with producer KNGKVMI, Brainstormz.

KNGKVMI is a producer from Bellevue, Washingon, who has been making music for roughly the same amount of time as Sinatra. He and Sinatra had worked together here and there over the years before officially coming together for their first project, B4THESTRM, in 2020. This project was billed as the prequel to Brainstormz, but we actually got another interlude, the EP Lull, in 2021 before we finally made it this album. This is all to say that Sleep Sinatra and KNGKVMI have an established chemistry together at this point. KNGKVMI knows how to cook up these raw, gritty boom bap tracks, keeping them as minimal as possible and playing with some interesting loops. This fits Sleep Sinatra to a tee, who likes to rhyme over these East Coast mid-‘90s-type beats that have that kind of edge to them. To that end, they keep this album fairly simple, not even trying to come up with some big hooks or anything else to make it more pop-friendly. This is just about raw beats and raw rhymes, strictly for those hardcore hip hop fans that rock with this particular style. You’re either with it or you’re not. Sinatra is mostly talking his shit, sometimes getting more introspective with it, but mostly concentrating on coming up with some clever wordplay to match the production. We do get a few guests along the way, including Adonis, Jah-Monte Ogbon, Smoovth, Vic Spencer, Deom, and Teller Bank$, who all join in the fun and try to outdo each other.

Brainstormz doesn’t try to be anything it’s not. If you’re looking for something without a lot of bells and whistles, just good old fashioned grimy hip hop that’s about the beats and rhymes, Sleep Sinatra and KNGKVMI have you covered.