Mikal kHill

This Halloween season saw a massive increase in the number of rap songs about zombies, but only Mikal kHill rose to the occasion, with a full album dedicated to the zombie apocalypse. And like any good zombie tale, The Walking Dead is about how the survivors deal with their new situation. Following creepy, cinematic instrumental intro "Title Sequence [Opening Credits]," kHill quickly gets to the action with "It Begins," waking up to find the zombie invasion underway and his wife and kids turned. He flees the house and sets out on his own, meeting some other survivors along the way. Jesse Dangerously turns up as a looter losing his sanity on "Death & Commerce," while Sulfur (kHill's partner in nerdcore group ThoughtCriminals) proves he's equally as good as a partner for zombie evasion and elimination on "Lost in the City" and "What's Left." Other guests include Z. (of website Hipster, Please!), playing himself on a distorted "Distress Call," Tribe One as a radio host providing a rapped on-air warning on "Flee the Cities" and Adam WarRock as the helpful "Voice on the Radio," which might actually be a sign of kHill's craziness. The story is well-organized and emotionally driven, and the beats complement the dark subject matter while maintaining a bit of bump and a whole lot of inventiveness. The Walking Dead is the best hip-hop album structured as a story since Prince Paul's A Prince Among Thieves.