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Captain Murphy, Cartoon Rap Villain, Delivers NSFW ‘Duality’ Short Film as Mixtape

Captain Murphy Cartoon Rap Villain Duality NSFW

Back in July, we met a mysterious rapper by the name of Captain Murphy, via the Adult Swim Singles Series track “Between Friends,” featuring Earl Sweatshirt and produced by Flying Lotus. Much speculation arose whether the deep-voice, foul-mouthed enigma was Tyler, the Creator, but Murphy has since convincingly denied Odd Future membership via Twitter and, should be noted, claims allegiance to Lotus’ Brainfeeder label.

Today he’s delivered further evidence to back that claim: Duality, a 35-minute mixtape-as-short-film that collages stricking images with the intent to convert viewers into willing sheep. While the clip mostly compiles live footage — hypnotic swirls, religious iconography, dead bodies, outdoor sex — Captain Murphy clearly identifies as a cartoon rap villain and cult leader, which makes him kin to Madlib’s seminal “bad character” Quasimoto and the Adult Swim-backed DANGERDOOM creation at the hands of Danger Mouse and MF DOOM, each of whom cribbed their identities from cartoons.

Ink Friday: take a look at SPIN’s brief history of cartoon rappers.

Fans can currently only watch the film through the Captain’s website. Via Twitter, Murphy has confirmed Duality production from Just Blaze, Madlib, Clams Casino, TNGHT, Samiyam, and Teebs, and some of his previously leaked tracks (read about those below) appear in the long-form video alongside previously unheard work. While new information is indeed unveiled, we’re no closer to knowing the man’s identity.

This is hardly the Captain’s first foray into film. His YouTube channel, which has racked up nearly 700,000 views despite never being officially promoted, includes four other animated clips. In “The Killing Joke,” a suited and bearded Murphy morphs from his usually sunglasses-wearing self into Batman, then reveals that he’s “the joker too.” In “The Ritual,” his face melts off and reforms continually while he raps about virgin sacrifice over a vintage soul loop. “Mighty Morphin Foreskin” is a psychedelic cartoon loop transmitting Technicolor terror.

It should be noted that the animation work on those videos bears a striking resemblance to that of Adam Fuchs, a.k.a. Lilfuchs, an Adult Swim go-to who’s made videos for Flying Lotus (“Zodiac Shit”) and Neon Indian (“Fallout”), not to mention worked on Harvey Birdman and Aqua Teen Hunger Force (or whatever it’s called now). But the most striking video, and one of the Captain’s best performances, comes with his full-on takeover of TNGHT’s “Bugg’n,” wherein the mysterious rap villain not only claims the track as his own to rap over, but remixes the video itself:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=g4cT5mLu2ME%3Frel%3D0

More on Murphy: The guy pilfered his rap name from Adult Swim’s Sealab 2021. He seems to fancy himself a cult leader. He clearly has a thing for the Dark Knight (hero envy?). His most recent, sadly video-less track is “Immaculation,” which features Brainfeeder signees Azizi Gibson and Jeremiah Jae. Last week, Flying Lotus tweeted: “thursday the homie dropping that duality. Has a lot of my production on it.” The plot thickens.