Ugly Heroes

After a few leaks, Red Pill finally hits us with his brand solo effort, “Look What This World Did To Us”. Dopeness! “Look What This World Did To Us.” The command is rhetorical. You’re already aware of the echo, the generational discontent and alienation, the whispered and denied calls for absolution. No need to look around, just check your bank account and sigh—or echo Biggie and scream, “fuck the world.” Or melt into the couch and absorb Red Pill’s debut for Mello Music Group—a novel disguised as an album, a surly hymn from poisoned lungs. It’s a confirmation of what John Cage once declared: “all great art is a form of complaint.“ Or maybe the better comparison is Bukowski, memorializing the “broken factory windows of emptiness.” That makes more sense in Ferndale, Michigan where Red Pill calls home. After college graduation, “Leonard Letdown” started working at a machine shop. A temporary gig turned into a labor daze. The dream of converting music into rent money seemed more elusive by the day. Depression compounded. The empty packs of cigarettes turned into cellophane towers. The whiskey mixed with an absence of hope. This album is a signal flare, an escape route, and catharsis. This isn’t just hip-hop, this is an attempt to distill the disillusion and cure the hangover. It’s both a brilliant mission statement and a jazzy funeral for what was promised but never delivered. This is for those who played by the rules only to discover that the game was