Premiere: ISSUE - "I Am ISSUE"

The Bay Area rapper offers up a neat introduction to his vast catalogue.

With a vast array of mixtapes and releases to his name so far, it might be a bit much to try and tackle bizarro rapper ISSUE’s vast discography, but helpfully the folks at Southern Hospitality have put together a digestible “best of” as a starting point. Named ‘“I Am ISSUE”’, the eleven track compilation takes in some of the young rapper’s best moments, each one illustrating a taste for the unconventional.

With outsider rap music becoming not just increasingly common but increasingly accepted nowadays, it shouldn’t be too unfathomable that tea-drinking, superhero mask-wearing ISSUE (the son of Bay Area stalwart E-40, FYI) would tackle the freaky and psychedelic. Even so, ISSUE’s choices of beats to tackle are unexpected, with ‘“I Am ISSUE”’ featuring self-produced cuts and guest appearances alongside freestyles over tracks by artists as unlikely as Boards Of Canada and CFCF, as well as his recent mixtape with Big War.

You can stream the whole record below, and download it at Southern Hospitality’s website.