So You Think You Can Juke?

I wrote a piece on Mr. Factz for The Fader's iissue 51.

NahRight.com was forthright about calling Factz a "hipster rapper," which is also a phrase getting tossed out about rappers like SpankRock, Kid Sister and Yo Majesty. It probably makes no difference at all, but for me Factz is a slightly different breed, albeit related. He, Curtains and Kapps are more akin to Cool Kid rappers: They wax endlessly about their rare, collectable gear that you probably never have heard of, and niche cultural trends. It's not so much about partying till the break of dawn and then going home to finish the fucking you started on the dancefloor, as with the aforementioned club rappers, above. Also, the production has some markedly different characteristics. Though Factz does draw from electro, house, and even trance and techno, he applies those genres with a particularly New York sensibility, and in more of an across-the-board sort of way, rather than drawing from just one regional sound, a la Spank from B-more club, Kid Sis from Chicago juke, and Tampa's Yo Majesty, funnily enough, from British electro. Finally, Factz, Kapps, Curtains and even the Cool Kids may, at the end of the day, have production that lends itself to being more palatable in the mainstream: They aren't generally pushing BPMs upwards of 160 -- a tempo that'll clear any dancefloor unfamiliar with more hardcore juking, new rave or footwork styles of dancing.

Anyway, I like Factz, though I don't care much about his Supras. You can download all his mixtapes for free here.