Le1f – Dark York (mixtape)

Khalif Diouf, aka Le1f, made this dark, immersive and painstakingly detailed mixtape using cash raised through the crowdfunding website Kickstarter. He asked for $2000 to put it together, but got considerably more than that in the end. Whichever way you look at it, it’s a bargain – especially now that it’s available to us for the unbelievably low price of zero cents.

Following collaborations with Das Racist and Nguzunguzu, Le1f’s ‘Dark York’ is an immensely rich tape of gothic terror, stuttering beats and sludgy vocals dripping with the grime of New York City. Underlying it all is Le1f himself, part of a wave of openly gay rappers coming out of Gotham right now to slyly overturn hip hop’s outmoded homophobic streak.

Le1f’s ‘Dark York’ mixtape can be downloaded for free.