If Wiki had to choose between a dinner with Jay-Z or $500,000, he’d probably choose neither. During his first appearance on Hot 97 last week, he ripped a freestyle over the beat for Hov’s “Dead Presidents” and wrapped up his interview by pushing back on the billionaire’s dismissal of graffiti as a core element of hip-hop. On air, Wiki described graffiti—and hip-hop at large—as a movement that prioritizes subculture over traditional fame and commercial success. It was a fitting stance for an MC who has spilled ink across every facet of New York like the city’s most determined tagger. It’s also what makes the output of Upper West Side artists like himself and JA ONE so enthralling, even if it feels like they’re striving to be lionized solely by a local niche for essentially throwing up the same words over and over again.
On Ancient History, Wiki isn’t radically reinventing his rhymes. His verses still land somewhere between moments of deep introspection and hyper-detailed musings about the Big Apple that could fill the New Yorker’s “Talk of the Town” column for a lifetime. But while his recent albums with Tony Seltzer and Subjxct 5 resurfaced some of the dynamism brought by Sporting Life during his younger years as the fire-breathing degenerate who tied Ratking together, that energy takes a backseat here. Instead, Ancient History leans into somber production shaped by longtime collaborations such as Seltzer, a new generation of New York rap he’s embraced such as DJ Blackpower (aka MIKE), and unexpected link-ups with producers like Dominic Maker of Mount Kimbie. Together, they create a canvas that lets Wiki’s words claim space and breathe like a Jenny Holzer “truism” exhibited in Times Square. And Wiki uses that vantage point to rap about aging gracefully in a city that changes far too fast.
No score yet, be the first to add.
Throughout the album, Wiki straddles thriving versus barely surviving adulthood in a New York that always feels ready to chew its best children up and spit them out. On “Bloom,” he soapboxes directly to Mamdanistan alongside Queens-born singer duendita, lamenting gentrification and the housing crisis. As if rapping from a speeding time machine, Wiki flows about yellow taxis turning into Uber Eats over an instrumental that cruises from a soft breakbeat into a total breakdown of glitchy scratches courtesy of Lil Ugly Mane.
The most gripping moments occur when Wiki turns inward. The brooding, Subjxct 5-produced “Bourbon” Wiki confronts alcoholism like an unbeatable disease that torments him like Prodigy’s darkest raps. On the stellar opener “GTFOH,” he questions the legacy of a locally renowned “tragic poet” over a drumless Lord Unknown beat filled with crying scat samples reminiscent of Madlib’s production on MF DOOM’s “One Beer.” “I ain’t gonna be as sad this year, I ain’t gonna be as mad this year,” Wiki declares at the song’s close, before jolting himself awake on “Right Away.” There, he flips the page over a skittering drill slapper by Laron while spewing bars filled with the unbound optimism of a diehard Knicks fan being filmed for a TikTok outside Madison Square Garden.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings