Kez by Mr Key & Illinformed

UK rap legend Mr Key returns alongside Illinformed with flash album KEZ.

After yet another extended hiatus, Mr Key is back with an unexpected concept album that combines tongue-in-cheek Viz mag humour, razor sharp lyricism, and pitch perfect boom bap production, to paint a surreal technicolour portrait of life amongst the freaks at the glorious, grotty edges of society.

Cutting his teeth as 1/5 of UK hip hop supergroup Contact Play, which he followed with two acclaimed experimental segues alongside Greenwood Sharps, Mr Key’s musical journey has been far from mundane. His new flash release - ‘KEZ’ - a concept album which documents the rise of a plucky kestrel through an off-grid anarchist commune - 'Bene' - populated by an ensemble cast of misfits, lost souls, drug dealers, new age healers, and would be cult leaders, is without doubt the weirdest and most wonderful twist yet.

´KEZ´ is a kaleidoscopic offering which diffracts the four years Mr Key spent in a chaotic off-grid commune in Southern Spain through the conceptual lens of cinematic New York golden age classics like ‘Only Built 4 Cuban Linx’ and ‘Prince Among Thieves’; the zero f**ks given energy of Contact Play and early era High Focus, and the foul mouthed British surrealism epitomised by Monty Python and Viz magazine. Such a strange concoction could easily miss the mark, but in the hands of a trio of veterans - Key, Illinformed and cartoonist Monsta - the results are as exceptional as they are unique.

With features from Dirty Dike, Jam Baxter, Ronnie Bosh, Smellington Piff, Leaf Dog, BVA and Sammy B-Side, and art from longtime friend and collaborator Monsta bringing the story to life at the crumbling edges of modernity.

illinformed.co.uk