Stik Figa debuts a new recording, called “The Pookey Tape”
In September, Topeka MC Stik Figa released City Under the City, a gorgeous rap-noir album that was the fruit of a collaboration with North Carolina producer L’Orange. Last week, Figa followed it up with the Pookey Tape, a collection of eight sturdy tracks that paint a vivid picture of the rapper’s Midwestern childhood. (The title is derived from Figa’s nickname as a kid.)
Figa’s flow is smooth and easy, a comfortable bounce in his pace even when his theme – youthful nostalgia and old neighborhoods – turns dark. He delivers verses like he’s smiling through them, and there’s something oddly reassuring about that.
Even as Figa discusses his struggles with an unadorned honesty, he presents his story with a sort of respectable, swaggerless pride. This little town you never heard of will always be my beginning, Figa raps on “Knowhere Pt. 2.” Later, on “Chicot County Summer,” Figa gives us this astonishing and powerful verse: Look, back home where slaves came off boats… Yet I still say “nigger,” that’s a shame, I know. It’s a rare and admirable sort of art that courses through on the Pookey Tape, as Figa notes that knowing and understanding where you came from is sometimes more important that wherever you end up.
Local favorites Irv Da Phenom and Reggie B. make appearances on the album. You can stream or download the whole thing here.
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On his new album, Stik Figa gets into a different mix
