SAMPLEDAKAI SOLO is part of the NYC indie rap wave and completely apart from it
The Brooklyn rapper has worked with Pink Siifu, Armand Hammer and Navy Blue — and still sounds like nobody else on the bill.
Backwoodz describes AKAI SOLO with a useful contradiction: he works amidst a renaissance in New York independent rap, and he is a man apart from it. The Brooklyn native has collaborated with a long list of the scene's central figures — Pink Siifu, Armand Hammer, Navy Blue — while, true to the name, steering his own course.
The voice
Akai raps in a rolling, run-on cadence that treats the bar line as optional. Lines pile up and resolve two thoughts later. It is closer to speech under pressure than to conventional rap phrasing, and it makes his verses instantly identifiable on a crowded posse cut.
On Backwoodz
Spirit Roaming is his marquee release for the label, pressed on vinyl and CD with its own merch run. It is the record most people should start with: dense but not hostile, spiritual without turning into a lecture.
Why the label suits him
Backwoodz has never asked its artists to simplify. That tolerance for difficulty is the whole business model, laid out in our label guide, and it is why a rapper whose style resists the standard verse-hook structure has a home there.
His artist page, including press photos and shop links, is at backwoodzstudioz.com (opens in a new tab).