Few rappers are more deserving of a caps-lock moniker than ANKHLEJOHN, a pure spitter who brings a superhuman intensity to the booth every time. People who don’t like that are objectively incorrect. The man is straight dope; there ends the discussion. He carved his lane out with a frenetic run of polished, thematic LPs that kicked off in 2018. Since then he’s amassed a catalog of over 20 albums with zero weak links in the chain.
If that kind of quality control gets harder to sustain over time, we’d never know. Big Lordy might rap like he’s going to die tonight but he’ll never let you see him sweat. The chaos is always controlled, the violence is always calculated. Anyone familiar with the legacy here knows that Pride of a Man is hardly a humble album title: this aims to be a major motherfucking statement. At seventeen crushing tracks of nonstop world class filth, it succeeds. This is a crown jewel.
The lane here got cemented years ago. ANKHLEJOHN blacks out over either lush, soulful laid-back loops or some of the bleakest bangers on the market. Pride of a Man alternates between both without ever wearing out the formula; the sequencing here is perfection. So are the beats. When you’ve got Alchemist in the lineup twice, stakes is high, but it’s hard to avoid noticing that August Fanon bodied three of the hottest cuts. (Ewonee, Nicholas Craven and Graymatter dropped God Mode clinics here, too.)
The guest list is equally bespoke. Big shout to Navy Blue for offering an old school station ID in the middle of his verse, that’s too rare these days. Then again, everyone here is an auteur with a distinctive flow: you don’t need a tracklist handy to know when Willie the Kids steps out to kill on “Adams Morgan” or that you’re tuned in with Fly Anakin on “Fast Eddies.” And yeah, that is none other than Inspectah Deck coming through to floss on “Reigny Dayz,” too.
Everyone swears their shit is like a movie but they don’t have the conviction to suspend our disbelief. Few rappers can muster a feature film, but ANKLEJOHN made it happen. Raw talent is not enough to pull it off.
Then again, no shit, right? None of this constitutes some big artistic breakthrough. His albums are always internally consistent works of art, focused sets with a clear purpose. Lordy By Nature stands as the greatest carjacking album of all time, Van Ghost is the soundtrack to a knife fight with the entire rap industry, and As A Man Thinketh was a master class. Along the way, helpless critics and trainspotting fans keep insisting that his sound is an acquired taste, some kind of future primate experiment. In fact, his engineering game is top notch goods, and most listeners have no idea how much polish it takes to sound so raw.
Not only one of ANKHLEJOHN’s single finest contributions to the culture, Pride of a Man is one of the best albums I heard from anyone in 2024, period. Five Dickies.
