Mush Records :: 2004 :: buy this record

These records, actually, never did him justice; too often, they spoiled his talent. This had been true, until the time when, with some support from his old friend AntiMC, he managed to release his opus magnus, an album full of potential hits, and globe-trotting and open-minded hip-hop, and which, had the rapper been more fortunate, could have conquered much more than the Shape Shifters fans' hearts. Never, indeed, had this underground and Californian genre of rap sounded so appealing. Thanks to Radio's free-form emceeing and AntiMC's catchy beats, this record was a heresy to any hip-hop purist, but you could have shared it with your grandmother, without any restraint; she could even have loved it.

This was not a chemically pure kind of rap. It was too much influenced by pop, or even world music. Both artists complied literally to their own principles, shared with the first track: "don’t be in a clique, don’t be in a crew, don’t be pigeonholed, have no genre". They felt allowed to try anything, any idea, like the bouncing bass on "Movin' Truck", the suave and tropical songs on "With Light Within", the "Police and Thieves"-like reggae of "First World Justice System", the furious acoustic guitar on "Stop Me Equals Death", the synthesizer on "Running with Scissors", the ecstatic and British sounding "Folding Dirty Laundry", or the musical arabesques of the superb "Magnets" – maybe a new allusion to Radioinactive's Egyptian origins.

All the beats were as crazy as the raps of the record's key player; they were as delirious as the surrealistic lyrics declaimed at full speed by an eloquent Radioinactive. With the help of Mush Records, and its European distribution, it was the perfect opportunity for a larger audience to discover in a free format, the rapper whose real name was Kamal Humphrey de Iruretagoyena; to see him freed from any rule, any constraint; and though, more significant than ever.