Skip to content
Spotlight

Food For Animals

Who? Kooky white rhymer Andrew “Vulture V”Field-Pickering took a liking to ProTools mad scientist Nick “RickyRabbit” Rivetti’s beats — or lack thereof — through a friend’s carstereo. From there, the two quickly became a Maryland by way of D.C.duo, collaborating on 2004’s noise-rock-meets-hip-hop EP, Scavengers. A second MC, Sterling “HY” Warren, was added to the Food For Animals food chain in 2006; Belly, FFA’s first studio LP, is available now via the Baltimore-based Hoss label.

What’s the Deal?Somewhere amidst the glossed over experimentations of El-P and thedigital firestorm currently being explored in grime lies the Food ForAnimals sound, where raps are drawn from hard drive chaos. Belly,referencing the group’s ‘belly of the beast’ D.C. roots, opens with”What’s Up,” an electronic blitzkrieg of bleeps and glitches weavedmasterly by Rivitti, strung into a ten second tease of a verse at theend. Other outliers like “Swampy (Summer Jam)” is slathered in funky’80s synths that’d fit nicely on the floors of the club. But FFA’s mostlethal moments are managed when the trio pulls flow from a very strangetechno-freak industrial wasteland that’s far more refreshing thanfrustrating.

Fun Fact: Food ForAnimals is gearing up for future beastly subgenres like “Nap Rap.””It’s a very slow, slower than screw, form of rap where you performveeerrrry slow raps over even slower beats and the audience is made tosit on pillows in an all-white room,” Vulture V tells SPIN.com. “Theentire movement, we decided, is spearheaded by HY’s “nap rap” alias,Pillow Reilly.”

Now Hear This:
Food For Animals – “Swampy (Summer Jam)” DOWNLOAD MP3

On the Web:
Food For Animals at MySpace

Talk: Is this Food fit for us Animals?