Frednukes - The latest best MC you haven't heard of...
Written by greggant
So you don't know FredNukes?

You probably shouldn't. Frednukes hails from Denmark, y'know, Scandinavia (south of Sweden?). Even if you're geography challenged, there aren't many European MCs who make noise stateside. There's a handful but not nearly enough. Fred despite his native tongue being Danish, spits in English making him accessible to the monolingual locked majority of US fans (Such as myself).

Frednukes started making noise on Artofrhyme.com, and for good reason, the cat slays soul beats by a tandem production set of Swedish producer Soul Supreme and himself. Fred likely was better known for production sets, doing songs for Majik Most and Little Vic if he's known at all, but its about to change.

Frednukes isn't your everyday rapper, he's breezes through singsong hooks in the vein of Kanye West but seems more at home on the chorus than big K. He's cocky but manages to balance of his ego with plenty of self conscience/self depreciative lyrics reminiscent of Slug mixing bits humor. Frednukes is made from the same mold as my favorite rappers such as Apathy or Tonedeff, MCs who can tackle heartbreak with utmost sincerity then follow it up with offensive humor and make the transition effortlessly. Fred reminds everyone "I only rap in your language so you can understand this". There's a certain sincerity that comes from Fred who's not afraid to admit he's not the best ever, making his bravado balanced, "I'm different but I care what people think of me".

If the indie-rock way of the world is to describe bands in terms of others by sonic characteristic the best I could say, is "reminds of Kanye West in his college dropout days" (Pre-annoying-ego). Humor, bragging, humility and soul.

He's a strong testament to an artist who's taken plenty of time to mature on the sidelines before putting out his first release, when most rappers are far too eager to throw out their B, C and D material on trash mixtapes. When Fred confesses his album was 4 years in the making, you can't help but respect it.

Just peep, "The Girls vs The Lady", Soul Supreme wailing chimpmuck samples and brass stabs combined with the sing-song chorus and Freddy professing, "I don't wan to sound like a material guy / but I am so why come up with a series of lies / I'm shallow hal yes I'm being rude my friend / I'm missing the ability to see beauty within / She one time asked why I don't introduce her to my friends / The answer is simple baby: its all about trends" is about as fullfilling as hip hop gets. I've nearly been listening to the song on repeat.

His whole album Deconstructing Fred isn't perfect but its completely listenable, and there's some real great songs, like One way or Another and Conveys an Emotion.

My biggest complaint is the complete lack of accessibility, and I don't mean Fred's music.... well I do but not artistically, I mean literally. I could NOT find it for sale in the US. Its on iTMS, but the Denmark site only. Ouch. His CD can be found for import but with the sinking dollar, £12 becomes $23.97 another £8+ for shipping means at least another $16.98 for shipping. Luckily I have a Danish friend whom I sent money via Paypal and bought the Album for me on iTMS+.

You can peep Fred's music on his myspace page or on Artofrhyme's radio in higher quality-than-myspace.

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