Rapper Kills It On the Slaughterhouse Beat

“I’m lighting and thunder/I might bring it under/I might swing and bring up a storm/My next plot is keeping it red hot/And deeper than Bedrock and hotter than warm.”

In the track Mighty, Zedek takes a stab at The One instrumental originally used by Slaughterhouse. The danger of using a beat previously featuring the current reigning rap super group, everyone knows how well the instrumental can be used and so the bar is already set high for anyone who attempts it. To put it simply, Zedek does what you should do when faced with this challenge. He raps his a** off.

His skill at complex technical rhymes is fully on display. The syllables clash and connect in such a brilliant way that even those indifferent to rhyme schemes will marvel at just how well the verse flows. Punchlines? Expect them and not just simple metaphors but the kind that extend into a running theme.

But the part that probably gets to every Kenyan listener is when the flow flips and his verbal assault switches to Swahili. It’s a great track that hits at several levels.

Zedek is a Kenyan rapper, born and raised in Nairobi but a Pittsburg resident for the past two years. He says, “I’m not quite the archetypal rapper in that I don’t always represent what the stereotypical rapper embodies. I think that people generally have ideas of what ‘good’ music is or should be. One of the reasons I started doing music was to see how far I could push that idea or how much people are willing to accept as different but still good. Hopefully I can help make underground, obscure or alternative rap bigger than its been.”

The beat samples Boogie Down Productions I’m Still #1 and Lenny Kravitz’s famous hit, Fly Away. Check out Zedek’s impressive flow which perfectly merges hip hop and rock below.