Pitchfork

Turns out Rollie Pemberton wasn't just another one of Dominique Leone's secret Pitchforka non grata rap writing alias. The Edmonton hip-hop head Pemberton aka Pimperton aka Cadence Weapon has just released his debut "mixtape," scribbling the e-pen that skewered Juelz and Vast Aire to put his own rhymes on the e-line and rep the production skills that already got Lady Sov going blah blah blah (a good thing).

I scarequote "mixtape" cause the term beguiles here. The 19 tracks on Cadence Weapon Is the Black Hand aren't actually mixed, and confusing things even more gloriously, Cadence's chameleonic delivery suggests the tape's got a whole crew behind it. One track he's all paragraph pilates like Gift of Gab ("Reeking of rifle precision, like my life is a prism/ Then mark off the list, I bark often, twist off the tryst of a prism/ And life is an ism, on the real, vice versa, verse a vice/ When you're labelled by your genre, my personal price/ Of immersion in the right right"-- he gets that all out in about five seconds), the next he's Doomy ("Up in the club on some 'How're you?'/ But I don't like photos like Howard Hughes"), and in between he softens his consonants like Z and irrrrs his ers like Aesop and Sage Francis.

Elsewhere, Cadence's hometown shoutouts get Simon Reynolds off his back. While most of us can't appreciate the local flavor of "Oliver Square", we feel Cadence's connection to them, and the low-level mystery of it all-- like the best low-level mysteries-- keeps us on pins. The city, seemingly forgotten by as many Canadians as the millions of Americans who don't watch ice hockey, serves as an ideal backdrop for Cadence's occasional "people are gonna respect me if it kills them" demeanor: "Don't generalize, you must think and wonder/ Why I drink 40s and memorize BusLink numbers/ Well, I don't have a license, but I'm tryna gain prominence/ 'Cause I'm living in a house with a fridge full of condiments."

And in case it's not clear, Cadence knows genre-- "old school new school need to know this," as it were-- impressively adapting his flow to production and even playing with the anachronisms: 80s throwback on "Falco vs. Starfox" is paid in full when Cadence flat-out pokeballs. (And for the record, my friend who's the best at Smash Brothers is better than your friend who's the best at Smash Brothers.)

Behind the boards Cadence's just as bizzle, remixing Beastie Boys, M.I.A., Gwen Stefani, and fellow countrymen Death From Above 1979 to deep bass hip-hop abstractions but otherwise with no pronounced shtick. Here we get the most definite hint that Cadence, as a listener, devours most everything.

Is the Black Hand puts Cadence's best feats forward, but his extremely varied musical interests seem to hold him back from developing a cohesive on-mic personality-- no callings cards, let along overarching concerns or worldview, even when showing his hand on pregnant heartbreaking closer, "Julie Will Jump the Broom". But that's a debut thing-- most debuts are mixtapes in that way-- and, maybe, just an age thing, too: He's 19! Jay, here's your Saigon.