Name: Exotica
Brand: Fat Tony

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

CAK148LP

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Colour

Colour details

Red, Yellow and Green

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Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2020-10-23

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

677517014815

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Total Cap

1 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / red

CAK148CD

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677517014822

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1 / CD / Extended format: No / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Fat Tony

Genre GB

Hip Hop

Label GB

Carpark

Carpark is an independent record label based in Washington, D.C. with a focus on electronic, experimental and synth-pop sounds. Founded in New York City in 1999, Carpark has been a prominent player in the music industry for over two decades. Since its relocation to D.C. in 2005, the label has continued to nurture and promote innovative artists who push boundaries and challenge conventions.

With a diverse roster of talented musicians, Carpark has become synonymous with cutting-edge music that defies categorization. From *Toro y Moi*'s dreamy electro-pop to *Speedy Ortiz*'s raw indie rock, each artist on the label brings their own unique style and perspective to the table.

As an influential force in the music scene, Carpark consistently releases groundbreaking albums that captivate listeners worldwide. With their finger on the pulse of emerging trends and sounds, they have earned a reputation for discovering exciting new talent before anyone else.

Storytelling isn’t merely a vehicle for self-expression, it’s a mode of transportation. A two-way mirror in which we process gilded dreams and grotesque nightmares, the transgression of cultural taboos and the upholding of ancient tradition. It’s also the animating idea behind much of the greatest popular music ever made. Consider Exotica, the new album from Houston iconoclast, Fat Tony, the latest brilliant entry in that fabled tradition, what Outkast once described as “shooting game in the form of story rapping.”

While hip-hop supplies the foundation of the Third Ward native’s assault on genre, his futuristic soundclash encompasses seductive velour soul, lecherous French chansons, fluorescent new wave, and even splashes of African pop and reggae; the latter two being the residual effect of Tony’s Nigerian heritage and a sojourn to Jamaica to record the Carpark Records-released album with engineer, Abijah Livingston, son of Bunny Wailer.

“This album is an ode to the art of storytelling through music,” the polymath born Anthony Lawson Jude Ifeanyichukwu Obiawunaotu says, distilling Exotica’s essence. “Picture records like The Great Adventures of Slick Rick. Artists like Neil Young, Bob Dylan, or Bob Marley. Every lyric was carefully considered to make sure we properly conveyed each character’s narrative and motivations. I wanted to create a world of unique stories with room for each to be interpreted in distinct ways.”

Assembling a Manhattan Project-style team of experts, the atom-splitting production came via Tony and his longtime collaborator, GLDNEYE (aka Tom Cruz), and engineering via Livingston and Brooklyn’s Steel Tipped Dove. To make the Third Coast cypher complete, Bun B pops up on What Wake You Up, courtesy of a cross-island dash where Tony paid visit to the legendary underground king, then vacationing in Montego Bay.

Each song is a rich and compact iteration of rap short fiction: Biggie’s I Got a Story to Tell channeled through John Cheever. Take lead single Feeling Groovy, a frantic meditation on lust, desire, and the notion of throwing it all away while puffing on a Black and Mild. Picture something like if Fat Pat fronted Scritti Politti. Or Gambling Man, where Tony one-ups the late great Kenny Rogers to tell the story of a ne’er-do-well schemer named Johnny, obsessed with the thrill of the roller coaster emotions before he discovers whether he’ll win or lose. If the Tom Tom Club knew every word to DJ Screw’s Wineberry Over Gold, it would probably sound like this.

Bob Dylan once famously said that an artist should “always be in the state of becoming.” And in the case of Fat Tony, Exotica is the latest stage in an evolution that has included everything from a bravura turn on the first A$AP Rocky mixtape to co-hosting a TV show on Viceland, founding a DIY Houston culture magazine to subversively expanding the parameters of experimentally-minded rap. Here is Exotica, nine new stories, more untrodden ground on the left hand path, a novel strain ready to be unpacked.