My last day of CMJ was my most anticipated.  Started off by getting my ticket in advance for Exploding in Sound's 3rd birthday bash at The Silent Barn, where almost every EIS band in some form or another would be playing.  After that I headed over to the warehouse spot over on Hart and Wyckoff known as Hot 97.4 for the 1.21 Gigawatts issue release (read some of my words in the new issue).  There I caught the tail end of Journalism, a tight band of Brooklyn cats who sound like a cross between My Bloody Valentine and Ty Segal, a good combo in my book. - Keep reading Jake Saunders' report of Day 5 of the CMJ Music Marathon 2014.

Don't mistake Ratking for one of your run of the mill hip-hop groups.  They're a live band, and it's their performances in and around the underground venues of New York that put them on the map.  Ratking has gathered a significant following in the five boroughs, and despite their lack of typical hip-hop ethics, have proved to be major innovators in the rap game.  Wiki's incredible agility and aggressive energy is something truly remarkable to witness; combine that with Hak's contrasting smooth-like-butter flow, and you've got an impressive melding of minds.  Add Sporting Life's eclectic beats into the mix and you've got one of the sickest live rap groups in the city right now. On top of all that, they release their music and support their compatriots through their own record label, Letter Racer. They're playing at SOB's next Monday (8/04), don't miss the show.  - Jake Saunders

Ratking’s new album drops in the US on April 8. If “So Sick Stories” and the accompanying video are any indication of this Uptown trio’s aesthetic, their premier album 'So It Goes' portends to be a quantum leap for Hip Hop’s current sonic landscape. MCs Wiki and Hak, like a reborn El-P and Bigg Jus, scatter abstract syllables and concrete imagery like shards of broken glass on so many Harlem overpasses. They seem to conjure the spirits of the city’s restless ghosts in their frenetic verses, and the accompanying beats bear somber witness. U.K. up-and-comer King Krule dips in for an intense hook on the track; an unlikely yet brilliant complement to Ratking’s gritty and astute meditations. - BrokeMC

NYC Hip Hop act Ratking - highlighted in the 2012 edition of our Best of NYC Poll for Emerging Artists - mold their smooth yet in-your-face rhymes together with skill. Their take on experimental hip-hop takes its own form, kind of kicking it old school like the piercing jabs of KRS-One mixed with Death Grips. One of their first marks on the scene was a team effort track with Eric Copeland of Black Dice back in November for Converse's Rubber Tracks. In preparation for the release of their debut album, titled 'So It Goes' (which will include a collaboration with King Krule), the band just dropped a pretty tight new single. Listen to their new, infectious track titled “Canal” below. – Michael Haskoor (@Tweetskoor)

If you don't like rappers who rap better than you then Ratking might rub you the wrong way. MF Doom-reminiscent production gives an ethereal beatscape to frame the staccato street blather MCs Wiki and Hak procure. There's a good deal of angst, but only as much as you'd expect from three cats from Harlem. It's like Wu-Tang and Camp-Lo's conjoined rapchild; abrasive but not inaccurate assessments of the Harlem day-to-day with a good dose of Krylon-fumed dementia. - BrokeMC