Rhys Langston

Since 2014, rapper and multi-instrumentalist Rhys Langston has released 20 projects which have stretched beyond genre and even the musical medium itself. Notable works include 2020’s Language Arts Unit, which came with a 104 pg book that dissected rap and race in a long form lyric essay. Grapefruit Radio arrived two years later in similar fashion—with an 88 pg paperback of his visual art and absurdist prose, along with full album lyrics. Those earned him nods from The NY Times, The LA Times, Bandcamp, SPIN, STEREOGUM, DJ Booth, and others. Wider range and idiosyncratic edge can be found on other projects, like 2021’s burst of punk rock invective Stalin Bollywood, 2019’s visual EP The T.C. Wash Suite, and his production on outsider artist Andrew Mbaruk's Affect Theory and the Text-to-Speech Grandiloquence. In 2023, Langston and Pioneer 11 collaborated on To Operate This System, a melody-forward melange of hip-hop, alternative R&B, and electro-psych. In 2024, his collaborative streak continued with the Frankie Jax No Mad-assisted notes from the unemployment office, and then the Steel Tipped Dove-produced Polyglot on Chloroform. 2025 brings his 20th project, Pale Black Negative. As a "rapper's singer-songwriter record", it is self-produced to the tune of 7 different instruments. Featuring underground icons like Open Mike Eagle and Mike Ladd, and rare poetics from Andrew Mbaruk and Cut Chemist-collaborator /former Darkleaf member Hymnal, it is avant-rap in genre abolition.