By Gary Suarez in Interviews — Apr 21, 2025

AMILES: The Radio Free Cabbages Interview [Video]

The PTP-cosigned artist straddles hip-hop, hardcore, and more. +reviews of Video Dave and The Underachievers

When Geng PTP backs an artist, I'm inclined to check it out. This fixture of New York's countercultural music world turned me on to a number of acts that became CABBAGES favorites, including AMANI, H31R, and, most recently AMILES. Depending on when you came across their music, you might better know them as Hardcorebae or even HBIC.

With PTP's help, AMILES recently dropped their first album Aight So Boom under this new and allegedly final pseudonym. As the guest on the April edition of Radio Free Cabbages, our monthly program on Bushwick's own Newtown Radio, they discuss their artistic journey and inspirations, including looking for and finding community within New York's hardcore and metal scenes. Watch the full interview video below or on the CABBAGES YouTube page.

(This interview was recorded live in-studio on Monday, April 7, 2025.)

Video Dave, Old Chicago Stadium

(buy it / stream it)

A known collaborator and frequent touring cohort for fellow midwest-to-L.A. transplant Open Mike Eagle, Video Dave stepped it up in the past few years with the full-length Controller 7 collab ArticulatedTexTiles and his auspicious membership in Previous Industries. After years of retirement threats and absences, he's truly come into his own with an oft witty grown-folks approach to rap, evident on the exquisite, nostalgia-informed Old Chicago Stadium. Those who fell in love with the vibrant interplay of last year's Service Merchandise may be taken aback at times by this more melancholic outing, with moments like "estimated time" and "of mountains and molehills" made thick with musings, memories, workingman's sighs, and pro-Palestine refrains. He infuses humor into alliterative exercise "the letter e" and the psuedo-jingle "jay's appliance repair." Yet those are key examples of Dave's skillful subversions, ensnaring like bear hugs turned bear traps. The sitcom-style title "how rude (stephanie tanner)" transforms into a compelling referendum on good and evil itself, while the Kenny Segal-helmed "that walk before dinner on xmas eve" is less about stoner strolls than profoundly wistful rambles. As for guests, while the apparent Previous Industries loosie "cvs is a target" assuredly satisfies with its groovy Child Actor beat, it's likely the repeated features by Ari The Indigo on cuts like "innovation" that will keep me coming back.

The Underachievers, Homecoming

(buy it / stream it)

Operating as The Underachievers, Flatbush rappers AKTHESAVIOR and Issa Gold played a vital role in the city's Brooklyn-centric Beast Coast movement. Even from way out in Cali, Flying Lotus knew what was up and co-signed the pair early and pushed their early mixtapes via Brainfeeder. Whatever it was that kept them apart over the past half-decade or so, it's nice to hear them back in action and as lyrical as ever on Homecoming. Neither artist seem content to stagnate nor overlook their growing-up-in-public past, self-critically probing past recklessness on "Vices" and offering mature perspectives full of real life eye openers on "What Is This Place." They sound sleek over the bassy booms of "Brand New" and "Wisher," each sonically aligned with a contemporary hip-hop wave in their own subtly off-kilter way. Even their summery boom bap refurbish "Megatron" bears ample modern touches, a testament to the raw power behind their respective rhyme styles. As for the keys to their endurance, look only to the intricately plotted "Have Nots" for clarity on that.