Sy ShacklefordBoth Roc Marciano and the Alchemist are double-threat hip hop artists: They are accomplished behind both the boards and the mic (albeit the latter is less so with Alchemist). While Al occasionally raps and has been crafting soundscapes for the grimiest street-level emcees for over two decades, Long Island’s Roc Marci brought the spotlight back on hard-edged gritty New York City gangsta rap. With a smooth flow and velvet voice like Goldie from “The Mack” (1973), Roc formed an innovative hip-hop narrative for NYC crime rap: Drumless production, looped unconventional samples, a DIY aesthetic, and incisive rhymes and vivid imagery of the NYC underworld. His lyrics are what Starz’s “Power” universe would be if better writers were behind it. In 2022, Roc and Al finally linked up for the stellar “The Elephant Man’s Bones”, with the latter producing its entirety. Their chemistry has resulted in a sophomore release, the ten-track “The Skeleton Key”. It feels like a standalone sequel because of the synonymous titles, but this album completely belongs to both men.
As a follow up on the last sentence, no guest artists appear on this album. Even with the loss of frequent collaborator and friend KA, Roc is no stranger to handling one or more areas of his projects himself. Roc wastes no time with his wordplay-laden boasts, starting with “Mystery God”. Its dusty sound canvas allows Roc to brag about having “enough blow to make the entire ocean ripple”. Though the beats are all Al’s brain children, Roc has a similar approach to his own productions and that’s part and parcel for why they connect so well. “Street Magic” proves this as Al goes for a minimalism for this track to allow Roc to do more with less. “Knock It Off” contains limited drums, but its sound is more defined by the looped piano keys. That aside, Roc drops clever bars “I’m too nice to critique, you should keep quiet like mice feet / Or thief in the night tryna sneak ice in the heist, type dude still accuse out the ice tea / I peep with my +Left Eye+ while you +Creep+ (While you creep) / While you creep, thought I feel asleep”. The single “Chopstick” encapsulates the chemistry between both artists with its “rob-you-blind-at-night” atmosphere:
“Acid” is the album’s shortest track, even on an album with several tracks less than two minutes in length. It’s built from a looped guitar sample, but that’s overshadowed with Roc’s bars such as “I’m from a different school of thought / You can’t be taught what I do at Juilliard”. The song with the brightest production is “Rauf”, containing a chopped soul sample rebuilt into a subtle melody for Roc’s coldness: “God ain’t make all us equal / Sugar don’t taste like Equal / You speakin’ to a igloo / You thought the freezer was cool / All ten of my fingers is blue”. It feels as though “Chateau Josué” is going to build up sonically, but it remains resilient for its duration and the name-checking of upscale fashion brands. “Skirt Steak” is built from a vintage 7” R&B sample, and an example of how many of Roc’s lyrical boasts go over the heads of some listeners.
The production on “Cryotherapy” has a surreal sound to it as though it was sampled from the score of an animated series, but Roc drops the title for the first time: “To get in this SUV, you need a skeleton key”On “Make Sure”, Alchemist drops a ‘70s style Blaxploitation-esque beat. This continues on the bonus tracks which include“Hard Drugz”and “Bleu Mouson”. Between the two, it’s the latter with the better production with guitar cords, piano keys, and jazzy drums. When Roc brags “I am the culture, I could coach you like Spoelstra”, he’s not wrong. He emerged for and from New York at a time when his state was on the musical jock of everyone else. Though their first 2022 outing was more impressive, “The Skeleton Key” holds its own, even with its sudden announcement and release. It’s tracklist length also leaves more to be desired. But if “The Skeleton Key” is just a morsel, then expect a four-course meal on the next Roc/Alchemist collabo.