Granuja & Jam Baxter - De las Sombras (2023)

While most spend their days wading through the treacly undercurrents of a decaying hometown, Jam Baxter spends his days carving out on a new existence in the heart of Mexico City.

With a forest of rare succulents of house plants on his eighth floor balcony, a notepad in his back pocket (for lizard spotting) and a flea market typewriter primed in his writing room, Baxter affords himself the time and grace for his new surroundings to seep into him, watching his writing take on new life in the exchange; days and nights spent in quiet contemplation as he sharpens his skills in unpacking the universe.

Granuja has eschewed the at-times chaotic metropolis of Medellín for a quiet life in the hills of La Ceja, where he produces and writes (followed around by his pack of loyal dogs). Six years since his debut solo LP ‘Círculo Vicioso’ dropped back in 2017, Granuja has been steadily carving a name for himself in Latin America and beyond with a series of critically acclaimed rap releases.

Baxter & Granuja first met in 2020; the former taking an impromptu 2-hour taxi cab in thickest night to Granuja’s studio way up in the winding hills of Antióquia. As with all great creative endeavours, plans to record ‘a couple of tracks’ snowballed; a single became an EP became an album, the momentum fuelled by a new Jack Danz’ instrumental landing in Baxter’s inbox every fortnight.

Before sunrise the bones of ’De las Sombras’ were born.

There is no question that Granuja and Baxter bring out a different side of one another. The two artists hopping borders, barriers and time zones; switching languages as often as they switch flows across an album unified by an all-encompassing sense of doom.

At its core, ‘De las Sombras’ is a gothic listen. A haunting, swooning downward spiral. Blacks, whites, purples and greens bubbling a thick concoction. Life and death at loggerheads in the back-and-forth; expertly soundtracked by Jack Danz most haunting works to date and complemented by a series of curated vocal samples furthering the gloom.

We like to think of ’De las Sombras’ as an OST for the album artwork. The castle a picture perfect symbol of an album persistently flirting with the supernatural.

Granuja & Jam Baxter - Black Clouds (SINGLE) (2023)

Granuja and Jam Baxter venture out on another twilight rampage in the shape of ‘Black Clouds’; the second single from the duo in as many months.

With a slinking Jack Danz production that could moonlight as the theme tune to a Sherlock Holmes thriller, ‘Black Clouds’ is arguably their most haunting effort to date, the duo hammering home the wider intentions of the LP as they bring "the evil back" on the hook.

It is a fine reprise, and proves beyond doubt that the darker end of the cross-continental rap spectrum is alive and well during Halloween season.

Granuja & Jam Baxter - Huéspedes [Beat by Jack Danz] (Official Music Video) (2023)

‘Huéspedes’ is the debut single from Colombian rapper Granuja and UK rap legend Jam Baxter.

Evoking the midnight blue tones of the ocean in the small hours, ‘Huéspedes’ is perfectly poised; both lyricists delving deep into the darker sides of their psyche, drawing on both internal battles and the chaotic, unforgiving nature of the world outside.

Featuring Baxter’s first ever Spanish 4-bar, and with DJ Sammy B-Side making a late appearance on the cuts, the track is ominous, foreboding, and acts as both a brilliant introduction of Granuja to the UK scene, but also a resounding reminder of Jam Baxter’s constant evolution as an artist.

Beat by Jack Danz

Cuts by DJ Sammy B-Side

🎥 Directed by Juanes Builes & Builesmith

🎥 Produced by Trigo 

Jam Baxter - Fetch The Poison (2022)

Alt-rap dissident Jam Baxter's newest solo venture, Fetch the Poison. Conceived during a state-wide alcohol ban in Mexico, the album is Baxter’s first to be composed in complete sobriety — though his hallucinatory style of storytelling and cast of monstrous characters make a welcome return.

Lyrics on Fetch the Poison meld Baxter’s Latin American experience with visions of a grisly alternate dimension: sun, sea and glittering vistas are sullied by hollow-eyed addicts, shady bar tenders and duplicitous lovers. Amongst deft bars, the rapper includes a number of spoken word pieces that echo the prose in his now sold out book Off-Piste. The album also features Blah Records' Nah Eeto and Black Josh, as well as DJ Sammy B-Side and Jehst, alongside Brazil’s NOG, Black Alien and Xamã. Baxter reunites with frequent collaborator Chemo on production — now under the moniker Forest DLG — for much of the album with appearances from Jack Danz, Dr Zygote, Wundrop (CMPMD) and Midlands' electronic stalwart Lenkemz. Despite its diverse credits tracks are connected by icy, spaced-out electronics, with beats twisted through tape distortion and anchored by chest-rattling bass.

Baxter began writing the album in Mexico just before the pandemic began, and was holed up in the city of San Cristobal De Las Casas, Chiapas, as the world shut down. “All the streets were eerily empty and it was amazing. I had the city to myself,” he says. “Then suddenly there was a state-wide alcohol ban and I could no longer casually sip tequila as I went about my business. I didn’t really have a choice but to write”

Fetch the Poison is Baxter’s seventh solo album. 

Jam Baxter - Brains [Beat by Illinformed] (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO) (2012)

Cuts by DJ Sammy B-Side

Video Credits:
Produced by Jam Baxter
Directed by Harry Wheeler
Edited by Andrew Hugh Craig
Costume by Jenna at Prangsta

Buy Jam Baxter's "The Gruesome Features" here: www.high-focus.com

Verse 1:

Deep aquatic excavator, disheveled entertainer

One thousand breeds of weasel wrestle on this escalator

Tree dwellers leaping out the boughs shouting “get the paper”

Trunk hugging rebels chucking petals at a detonator

Man this shit’s second nature

My colossal monster, fed a rich mix of tar truth and bottled vodka

Off to clock the shrunken brains that punctuate the squalor yonder

Shotters on the underpasses passing rocks in rotten Poplar

Doctor doctor, your people never needed you

It’s deep when human evolution seems it’s superseded you

My super seeds will germinate and turn the greys to greens and blues

They’ll never find a pesticide to burn away the weeds that grew

Divine vines twists around a muddy aura

Gully author guilty is the hand that grips the bloody borer

Bloody nora shit the bed the kid’s back, bell your Mom

It seems a barrer’s work is never done – tell ‘em son

Chorus:

Can you replace a man’s brain? it seems a bit deranged

I was still a fetus when the smug salesman came

Calling out my name a stranger in the rain

Banging at the doors of all perception screaming cuz pick a

Brain frazzled brains, pickled brains, putrid brains, fickle brains

Giant brains, shriveled brains, vile brains, crippled brains

Runny brains, yummy brains, mushy brains, get your brains

Lovely brains, steaming brains, eat your brains, buy my brains

Verse 2:

Nice crematorium, I simply love the décor

The burning brains add a lovely sparkle to this stage floor

I guess it’s all to play for, I’ll smash it in the second leg

The jaded killer dragging seven dead sins to resurrect

And entertain for brunch inside my mind I awake again

Like, come on my trusty little sidekicks, let’s make amends

Please, I’ve got a plan for us, hapless clammy hands erupt

in every shade of perfect turning vermin into trampled slugs

Turning serpents into snapped elastic bands that once

held a mind together, find the bits and bind them better

Goodbye forever, wait, I think I left my keys

somewhere in that reprobate’s brains I guess I better see

hold still, operation rummage fails at phase one

The blade swung, the kid fell, I watched it all and stayed numb

The day comes where Mister Guts McGruff needs to clock the truth

Belling up an ever eager salesman in a soggy suit

Chorus:

Replace that brain, it seems a bit deranged

See he was still a fetus when the smug salesman came

And now it ain’t the same, a stranger in the rain

Banging at the doors of all perception screaming pick a brain

Giant brains, shriveled brains, vile brains, crippled brains

Runny brains, yummy brains, mushy brains, get your brains

Lovely brains, steaming brains, eat your brains, buy my brains