{"title":"Apollo Brown and Ras Kass","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"blasphemy-2","title":"Blasphemy","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBlasphemy\u003c\/em\u003e, the collaborative album from esteemed Mello Music Group producer Apollo Brown and Ras Kass, is a thought-provoking and highly personal treatise on the unspoken. The sub-rattling and operatic opener \"How to Kill God,\" a scathing indictment of major religions and the transgressions enacted in their name, serves as a statement of purpose. No \"ism\" is out of bounds, no topic too untoward. Whatever you hold sacred isn't above aggressive inquiry. Behind the boards, Apollo Brown orchestrates with divine aural vision. Though Blasphemy is his first album with a west coast rapper, he doesn't retread g-funk synth grooves. He also forgoes the minimal, rubbery bounce popular with the current crop of west coast talent.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAmidst a sea of production crafted for the drug-addled turn up, his work is a life preserver, saving ardent hip-hop fans with hard-hitting beats made buoyant by donuts of soul and blues. On his deftly layered suites, drums hit with the force of an unabridged Bible to the dome, the samples masterfully selected and utilized. With Blasphemy, Brown has created MPC gospel, sonic scripture. In his seminal memoir Soul on Ice, Eldridge Cleaver wrote, \"All the gods are dead except the god of war.\" Ever since Ras Kass titled his 1996 opening salvo after Cleaver's book, the critically revered Carson, CA rapper has waged verbal warfare against all those with aims of obscuring the truth. Rappers, preachers, politicians - none have been spared from the wrath of his sharp, illuminating rhymes. When not eviscerating MCs and poking holes in theologies, Ras Kass surrounds himself with a rogue's gallery of decorated veterans. Pharoahe Monch, Rakaa Iriscience, Xzibit, and Royce Da 5'9\" are among the handful of the elite lyricists present. Each delivers their singular bars in top form, making the songs on which they appear some of the best posse cuts you'll hear in 2014.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mello Music","offers":[{"title":"LP - Black","offer_id":50480939073867,"sku":"1140533","price":23.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"LP - Red White Blue with Flexi","offer_id":57173393408331,"sku":"R0633-3741","price":36.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/19227d11-a670-4827-b9d7-e2578a27ddaa_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727530444"},{"product_id":"blasphemy-4","title":"Blasphemy","description":"\u003cp\u003eA cold sermon for warm-blooded sinners, \u003cem\u003eBlasphemy\u003c\/em\u003e pairs Ras Kass’ razor-edged theology with Apollo Brown’s sepia-toned soul loops—an album that feels like scripture rewritten in graffiti and gunpowder. Brown constructs a chapel out of dust-scratched vinyl: ironclad drums, gospel fragments, horns that sound like they’ve survived too many winters. Over that cathedral of grit, Ras Kass steps in like a rogue prophet, dismantling mythologies with scholar-level precision and West Coast snarl. His verses slice through religion, race, politics, and personal apocalypse—part history lecture, part street-corner sermon, part heretic’s prayer. Guest appearances—Pharoahe Monch, Royce da 5’9”, Xzibit, and more—arrive like fellow priests of the unholy pulpit, sharpening the album’s edges without stealing its center.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eBlasphemy\u003c\/em\u003e isn’t built for passive listening; it demands engagement, rewinds, and maybe even a dictionary. But beneath the intellectual shrapnel is feeling, too: bruised pride, survival-mode clarity, the restless search for truth in a world addicted to lies. This is boom-bap as moral reckoning. A dusty-fingered gospel for those who don’t trust institutions but still crave meaning. A record that questions everything yet stands solid in its craft—Detroit drums welded to L.A. lyricism, both beating against the sanctimonious and the hypocritical with equal force. \u003cem\u003eBlasphemy\u003c\/em\u003e is not here to comfort you. It’s here to wake you up.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Mello Music","offers":[{"title":"LP - Tri Stripe Red \/ White \/ Blue","offer_id":57589205729611,"sku":"R6122-6053","price":36.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/unnamed-2026-06-16T110411.018.jpg?v=1781604260"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/fr\/collections\/apollo-brown-and-ras-kass.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}