Kofi the Spiderman is the solo project of Lowell, Massachusetts rapper Kofi Edzie, who is also a member of electronic trio Arty $lang. Next month, they will release a new EP February 21 on Grimalkin Records, an underground hip hop album the label says “takes the listener through the trials and tribulations of surviving and battling loss, betrayal, illness, and isolation.”
Made in collaboration with producer Sawtooth, February 21 is as intense as that description sounds, each song set within a sense of inner turmoil, wrestling with demons both personal and societal. But there’s more to the music of Kofi the Spiderman than one-dimensional anger and ennui. Even the darkest moments are silvered with a sardonic lining, a kind of droll humour that captures life in this 21st century hellscape with a grim and knowing fatalism, revealing strength and vulnerability alike. “Kofi lays bare their soul with earnestness and wit,” Grimalkin describe, “they search for hope, or create it, when there is none to be found.”
This atmosphere is illustrated perfectly on lead single ‘Piñata.’ Ostensibly the record’s poppiest moment, the driving beat and 80s synths conjures the lonely and slightly wild feeling of driving through deserted streets at night. But Edzie’s modulated vocals nevertheless ache with candid emotion and unrest.
