Snok Brown & Mush Beats "VENTICINQUE" [EP]

 

Venice doesn't often come up in conversations about European boom bap, but Snok Brown has been holding it down there for over two decades — early work with TK Family, years with the Musou Sound collective, and a 2014 cult record Nobody Knows on Unlimited Platform that put him firmly on the map for anyone paying attention to Italian underground hip-hop outside of Milan's orbit. Venticinque is a lean, five-track EP with Mush Beats, a fellow Venetian producer, handling all production. Recorded at the BrownBread Studio in Marghera — right across the lagoon from Venice proper — with Snok managing mix and mastering duties himself, the project has an entirely self-contained feel. The production sits in a classic boom-bap framework, unhurried and confident, and the Italian-language lyricism carries a directness that doesn't need translation to communicate its intent. Five tracks, no filler, released on We Bring Bass Records. This is what regional underground hip-hop looks like when you've spent twenty years building something that actually matters to your city.