Review: Maassai, With the Shifts

It appears that quarantine is no match for Maassai’s hustle. Just three months ago, the Brooklyn rapper teamed up with producer JWords to drop ve·loc·i·ty under the H31R moniker. That project had the duo pushing hip-hop’s electronic fringes, mixing Maassai’s eclectic cadences with JWords’s futuristic, footwork-inspired beats. But on With the Shifts, a 17-minute mini-album, the rapper steps away from the duo to go solo with a small team of producers. Like ve·loc·i·ty, With the Shifts displays Maassai’s ability to get to the bottom of a track’s rhythmic and lyrical core, no matter how avant-garde the beat may be underneath. But this time around, instead of interpreting the sounds of the dance floor, Maassai is riffing on chill jazz and deconstructed ‘90s boom-bap to find the pocket.

Unlike the bars of neighboring innovators like MIKE, whose winning rap formula lies in his droney and woozy flow, Maassai’s delivery is crisp and lucid. Her sharp diction awards her punchlines extra weight, like on the eerie, high-hat heavy track “Cozy.” When she raps “when I popped the blouse open,” you’re expecting her to punctuate that set up with a sexual brag. Instead of treading in that well-worn trope, Maassai flips the script on the sex-obsessed, female rap narrative, hitting the punchline from an angle of casual empowerment: “When I popped the blouse open / it’s just hot in here / if you watching me make sure you watch ya mouth.” It’s been a blast to watch Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion shock the nation. But it’s equally amazing to watch underground female rappers like Maassai subvert these expectations.

Though Maassai is a powerful MC, her lyrical acrobatics rarely feel showy. Instead, she aligns her prowess with the Kendrick Lamars of the world, artists who adapt their ideas to the groove of the song, never the other way around. On the jazzy, kick-drum-driven track “Grace Jones,” Maassai manages to rage against sexism while still remaining infinitely chill on the mic. And while you’re distracted by her dizzying internal rhymes and laid back flows, her mighty one-liners bring knockouts that you didn’t see coming: “Getting cred without work — on sabbatical basically / We innately magical / And they hate to see it / And we hate the status quo.” With only seven tracks to chew on — it’d be nine if it weren’t for the interludes — With the Shifts is more of an EP than a proper full-length. It may leave us waiting for the next course, but at the rate that Maassai is releasing material, we may not be waiting long.

Check out With the Shifts on Bandcamp below: