mewithoutYou w/ Small Parks and Jahshua Smith & the Race Card

Whimsically morbid as an Edward Gorey alphabet, simultaneously self-abnegating and -aggrandizing, defying simplistic musical or intellectual categorization, mewithoutYou’s new collection of songs is the fabulously vivid outgrowth of an ongoing religious and irreverent eclecticism, a ‘decade-plus narcissistic scramble for artistic affirmation’ (their words), and the even longer-running and peculiar friendship of four not-so-young gentlemen from nowhere in particular, apparently at the height of their mutual affection.

Jahshua Smith’s wardrobe tells as much of a story as his music. Despite rocking the latest designer streetwear, he rarely leaves home without his wristband that sports the Pan-African flag. Smith’s conscious, sociopolitical lyrics about his experiences in Detroit hit just as hard as his fly, cocksure rhymes—and that balance has a platinum-selling producer, some of Michigan’s most respected rap names, and a league of blogs and fans behind him.