Ghais Guevara
ABOUT
Not many rappers have performed at enormous venues, punk rock dive bars, and Marxist book stores - introducing: Ghais Guevara. Born and raised in North Philly amidst both guns and gang avoidance tactics, nurtured and educated using generational radical Black leftist thought, Ghais Guevara revels in the juxtapositions and narrative conflicts of his life on his new project: Goyard Ibn Said. His discography reveals two previous mixtapes, with Ghais now declaring Goyard Ibn Said his debut album and his first release for Fat Possum. Influences range from Ingmar Bergman’s 1966 film Persona which Ghais says “opened my mind to the concept of the deflated self as a result of trauma” to Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Mask and onto Oliver Sacks’ The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat.
To ask Ghais Guevara, Goyard Ibn Said is a concept record with Goyard acting as our fictional anti-hero. The listener submits to an anthological gaze into the desires and downfalls of a successful rapper and the exploitation of the Black experience. Act 1 highlights the glory and spoils of mainstream hip-hop stardom, while Act 2 takes a surprise turn and focuses on the tragic experiences faced in order to achieve that success. The unrelenting pressures and tragedies never stop: poverty, crime, death, success, fame, fortune, Goyard is shattered, broken, suffering a mental collapse. Perhaps the greatest contradiction arrives towards the end of the album where we find Goyard mustering the courage to get up and try once again, maybe now ready to impart hard won wisdom for the next generation, this tragic cycle ending with him. Maybe not.
Thankfully, rather than exhausting, Goyard Ibn Said inspires - with Ghais’ raw energy and witticism rightfully drawing comparisons with JPEGMAFIA, and his sharp, compelling, introspective lyrics (bringing to mind a younger billy woods) all atop vibrant production, the album is more club jam, than Sunday sermon.
First single Leprosy, a song inspired by multiple nights in NYC, won acclaim from publications such as Clash, The Line Of Best Fit and Brooklyn Vegan. It’s no coincidence that single 2, Camera Shy, occupies the middle of the tracklisting, taking us from Act 1 into Act 2. The album's linchpin is a certified banger that Ghais describes as *the* stylistic shift of his musical output.
Elsewhere on the album, 4L was written after Ghais experienced some fun “trips”, while Bystander Effect features production from DJ Haram, the NYC based artist fast becoming Underground Rap's go-to producer alongside Ghais' Fat Possum labelmate, and one-half of Armand Hammer, ELUCID.
Ghais Guevara has turned in an eclectic mix of sounds - tribalistic boombap, trap and club and drill amalgamated against sultry soul, dense wordplay and highly danceable postmodern park jams. Ghais ruminates on Philly, hip hop and the life of a Black man in America all to a soundtrack that is relentless and immersive.
Ending with a powerful anthem, You Can Skip This Part, Ghais raps “I’m dancin’ for these crackers while I call these niggas ‘crackas’ and I’m dappin up the rappers that’s subservient to crackers” - a verse that embodies the layered, controlled subjectivity of Ghais ideas about the industry, and how those ideas can resonate as allegory for the real world. Very pausable, very rewindable– with Goyard Ibn Said, Ghais Guevara has entered a new tympanic realm, a rare universe, a sector of the rap stratosphere that he can claim as solely his own.
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