Album Review: Mickey Diamond, Ral Duke - Super Shredder

In the ruthless drop-or-be-dropped landscape that is the modern music industry, where taking so much as a year or two off from putting out new material is difficult to justify for all but the biggest of big names, the question of ‘how much is too much’ is one we’ve yet to find a real answer to - if such a saturation is ever reached, though, bet on Mickey Diamond to be the one behind it. Mickey has been too busy working to prove that he could be the hardest working rapper in the game to waste time asking if he should, and in fairness to the brusque Detroit MC, the results have borne more than enough fruit thus far to sustain themselves for going on four years and 20+ projects of (mostly) superb material. Ever since the release of the first Bangkok Dangerous tape in 2020, his underground renown has been rising almost as fast as his vinyl prices, yet after a 2023 full to bursting with projects and collaborations (from Bangkok Dangerous 4 to Gucci Ghost 4 to numerous others), it’s hard to argue that the brand has not begun to dilute itself at least a little bit. The inevitable doubts that the Mickey Diamond moment will last much longer have nonetheless been temporarily quashed by Super Shredder, a remarkably fresh addition to his catalogue that, in its excellence, almost seems to question the validity of Mickey’s breakneck approach to rap. If every project could be this memorable given enough time to coalesce, how much longer will it be until Mickey’s demanding schedule starts to outpace his talent?

The first Mickey Diamond album of last year, Oroku Saki, was a colourful, succinct burst of top-tier rapping and retro throwbacks to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoons and movies, with plentiful nods to the late great MF DOOM (if the cover art wasn’t enough of a clue) tossed in for good measure. Its sequel of course shares much of this same DNA, with the runtime being the most noticeable change: Super Shredder is literally twice as long as its predecessor, and though 45 minutes isn’t exactly an eternity, that Mickey is able to apply his themes and references so consistently throughout is one of the record’s most unexpected strengths. As early as the first track, the menacing entendres are coming fast and furious (“Crash your dome, smash/Mad colours flashing when the chrome blast/Dimension X is where you soul’s casted”) over a classic boom bap pairing of thudding percussion and eerie piano loops. The lengthier runtime also gives producer Ral Duke more opportunity to experiment, something he takes full advantage of immediately thereafter with the Motown-esque samples on Shredder Loves April – a strange concept for any TMNT fan to wrap their head around, certainly, but Mickey’s twisted romanticism is an oddly effective sell. The soulful détente of Coffee Beans is even more hypnotic; the writing isn’t quite at its peak here, but as Mickey’s flow weaves in and out of the instrumental with barely a stop for breath, it’s impossible not to get sucked into the track’s aura: “Prime minister, with a passion to rhyme sinister/Pure underground, crime sprees like John Dillinger/Known to take over small towns and rob villagers/Break factions down to fractions and small integers”.

Moments like the sinister string loops of Technodrome, meanwhile, serve up more of what fans have come to expect from Mickey Diamond: an ominous air of arrogance (“Stay awake and don’t snooze/Play the game straight and you won’t lose/On FL or Pro Tools, I run through whole crews”) tempered with equally ridiculous one-liners (“Link with white chicks, I’m Terry Crews”), all rapped over some of the most hauntingly opulent production this side of Conductor Williams. Most underground rappers owe something or other to Westside Gunn and the Griselda formula, but Ral Duke has found a style all his own to blend into the infectious energy of tracks like Foot Clan Party and Tin Can Assassin – a pace that Mickey’s dexterous verses are all too ready to match. The rapper’s hooks almost lean into self-parody here, as if to illustrate just how much the caliber of his verses lets him get away with; the results are admittedly kind of charming, but only just. Fortunately, the harder cuts form enough of a backbone to stabilize Mickey’s more frivolous moments, from the grimy bass and keys of TGRI and Rocksteady (“Born to wreak havoc, rock beats, make the streets panic/Mickey ’93 Illmatic/Still at it, metallic mask, get your grill splattered”) to the guttural synths of Hyperstone Heist (“I’m a K-I-double-L-E-R, see y’all in hell/I’m like Nas to a peon, it ain’t hard to tell/Guard your grill, life’s a gamble, I got cards to deal”). Mickey’s more tongue-in-cheek tendencies still get plenty of space on the mic, though; the crossover episode between drug dealing and the Cartoon Network that is Cartoon Car Tunes reaches laugh-out-loud levels of absurdity as Mickey’s warped imagination finds him “cooking up meth in Dexter’s lab” for the Hanna-Barbera cartel. Scooby Doo and the Mystery Inc. gang run drugs for the Kids Next Door, mob hits get carried out by Quick Draw McGraw and Samurai Jack, and all the while Mickey Diamond’s narration can barely contain his self-satisfied amusement: “Cheffing up glass shards for the extra cash/Yo, my name Johnny Bravo if detectives ask”.

Taken within the context of Mickey Diamond’s gratuitous discography, it’s tempting to view Super Shredder as a sign that the rapper’s star still has plenty of time left before it burns out, and not just because Mickey’s latest record is likely his best to date. Still, the question of why release so much material with so little pause remains relevant, and it’s one that Mickey even offers an answer to (in a way) on the retro, horn-tinged closer Shell Shock: “Everybody see me dropping at a fast pace, and wonder why/You only as good as your last tape”. In any industry as cut-throat as the one Mickey Diamond has found himself a major player in, you truly are only as good as your last envelope, in the eyes of many; to take even a short break from releasing new music, even for entirely valid artistic reasons, is a risk that few can afford to take, especially if they want to construct a reputation that outlives their transient popularity. With all that in mind, the extended runtime, greater thematic continuity, and (relatively) longer delay between this and his last release all become even more notable, indicating a greater effort on Mickey’s part to see that Super Shredder is remembered years from now with the same nostalgic fondness that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (and MF DOOM) are today. It might be that an unsustainable form of hyper-productivity will sadly be the only viable option for making money off of one’s art going forward, but for as long as quality has not been completely eclipsed by quantity in the music world, there will always be room for a rapper like Mickey Diamond, who for now remains nigh unmatched at delivering both.

8.5/10

Favourite Tracks: Shell Shock, Foot Clan Party, Coffee Beans