Planit

Calgary’s freestyle veteran Planit presents another dark disc of grimy hip-hop with his sophomore album, The Whole Process of Things. Main producer Dirty Sample’s dirty samples are responsible for giving the majority of the songs their dark and grimy sound, which acts as a great backdrop for Planit’s deep, gruff voice that has a lot in common with label-mates Lexington + Whatevski, who join him for "Falsgods.” This time around he also demonstrates a more confident flow that does away with some of the awkwardness of his debut. The self-professed Sad Ape is an angry rapper that excels at braggadocio and dissing wack rappers, although he does get conceptual with tracks about extraterrestrials ("Dark Star Genesis” with Cam the Wizzard), the influence of music in his life ("Music” with Alter One), and rock hard sex raps ("Lady Luck”). That last song — an album highlight — is produced by Whatevski, who also assists with a couple of other rough-edge beats for the album, while Side Roads in-house producer and label head Factor breaks the album mould with a mellow beat perfect for getting introspective. A little more variety like that would have been nice, but The Whole Process of Things is still a cohesive album for fans of dark hip-hop.