Rising Ugandan MC Swordman Kitala teams up with UK-based producer Soft-Bodied Humans for Kaiju Kitala, a debut EP of addictive energy and killer flow that samples historic Japanese monster movies.
Soft-Bodied Humans and Swordman Kitala’s Kaiju Kitala project began with a hopeful email sent to Kampala. The former - an electronic producer based in London - started creating new experimentations in wonky, acerbic, bass-heavy hip hop based on his love of early Japanese monster films. “There was something in the sound design of those films that I thought was really cool and interesting and I wanted to try using those sounds as musical building blocks, kind of like a sample pack,” he writes. “What the tracks absolutely needed was a killer MC. I made a list of my favourites and the one at the very top of the list was the first one to say yes - that was Swordman Kitala.”
Swordman Kitala felt the resonance of the whirring hydraulics and metallic crashes of mecha, the shrieks and roars of kaiju draped over dub-inflected beats, shaking bass and abandoned-factory synthesis. Fresh from collaborations with DJ Scotch Rolex (fka DJ Scotch Egg), Lorenzo BITW and Phantom Limb alumnus MC Yallah, he offers a twitching, urgent energy to the project. His flow is rhythmic, bullish, scattered with rough vocal tics and Kampala-specific shout outs. A unique styling that hits right between the eyes and makes Kaiju Kitala an exhilarating ride.
