culture
Sound Advice: Asian Elvis by D-Sisive
D-Sisive's new mixtape has an odd name and a diverse bunch of songs.
D-Sisive is probably the hardest working man in Toronto music. Just weeks after releasing a magnum opus tribute to the Beastie Boys’ MCA, the man occasionally known as Derek Christoff is back again with a new 14-song mixtape somewhat inexplicably called Asian Elvis.
Asian Elvis is a mixtape in the old-school sense. With the exception of a couple beats from frequent co-conspirator Muneshine, most of the songs are over borrowed beats—some of them from new, internet-hot hip hop (Danny Brown, Kendrick Lamar, A$AP Rocky), while others are sourced from more unexpected places (Beirut, Elliot Smith). Muneshine uses this unusual mixture of sounds to show that D-Sisive isn’t so much a rapper as an entire rap group stuck inside of one man.
D-Sisive returns to his roots as a lyrically murderous battle rapper on the title track and on “The NoteB.O.O.K.,” where he goes for the throat of a particularly egregious style-biter. (You can listen to “The NoteB.O.O.K.” by clicking on the sample above.) On “I Saw My Father Cry,” “The Snowfall,” and “Suicide Heaven,” he comes across as the brilliant-but-tortured MC we saw on The Book and Run with the Creeps. On “Morris Day,” he’s just a funny, affable guy talking about his slight workaholic tendencies. No matter what persona he’s throwing out, he’s consistent in one thing: pretty much every verse on the entire tape has at least one rewind-worthy line. (“Morris Day” has about seven.)
D-Sisive is already known as a smart MC with great punchlines and a gift for storytelling. On Asian Elvis, he proves that he can be any MC you want him to be.