MSTRKRFT Fist Of God
Picture a record label meeting room. The MSTRKRFT boys are playing ‘the suits’ their new stuff. They’re excited – why wouldn’t they be? They’ve been beavering away on a ‘new sound’ that mixes riffy techno with guest spots from some of the biggest names in hip-hop, from Brooklyn to The Bay.
But, after each new track drops, so do the faces of the label bosses. They look baffled. Their tiny minds are blown – rappers on banging dance music? How? What? Why?
To be fair, this is some time around 2008, and this was largely uncharted water. Back then Dirty South and Queensbridge rap was over there [points left], and powerhouse synth-led electronica was way, way, way, over there [points right]. And the two rarely mingled. Let alone got on like a house on fire.
“I remember that meeting to this day,” says MSTRKRFT’s Jesse F Keeler. “The label had these confused faces. And after they’d heard the whole thing said, ‘You guys made a kinda urban… dance record?’. And we said, all excited, ‘Yeah!’. Then they told us, ‘We’ll let you out of your deal. We… wouldn’t know what to do with this.’ It’s
