The Cave

JPEGMAFIA, aka Peggy, is a rapper/producer originally from NY but describes himself as a Baltimore artist. At 13 Peggy moved to the south where he eventually would join the Air Force and serve a 4 year tour in Iraq. Peggy is now an acclaimed artist covered by publications from Pitchfork to Fader and everywhere in between. Oh and if this doesn't work out he'll turn to journalism.

This week in The Cave we have two of our favorite artists from the Midwest - Smino & Monte Booker. Smino is getting ready to kick off his HOOPTI TOUR starting tomorrow, while Monte is still trying to find his way back to Earth. LA Rapper Buddy (loves kush) makes an appearance as well.

This week on The Cave, we are joined by the elegant, charming, inimitable Rico Nasty. She has descended from her bejeweled perch among the immortal souls of Mt. Olympus to join the peasants below and remind us why we all pray to her shrine nightly. Kenny, who just so happens to be a white person of the male gender, assembles an instrumental out of thin, blunt smoke air and the magic begins. Their collaborative album, Anger Management, not to be confused with the 2003 comedy starring Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson, is set for an April release. Expect emotional purging, guitar shredding, screaming, and KENNYYYYYYYYYYYYYing.

This week on The Cave, we are joined by a man of true character and grit, from the smokestacks of Gary, Indiana: Freddie Gibbs. He regales us with lurid tales of coke-snorting dinner companions and misplaced pussy hairs while Kenny Beats prepares an appropriate instrumental for the occasion. No sooner than Kenny (who against all odds has continued to be a white man from Connecticut) finishes the beat, Gibbs is in the booth tearing down our beloved studio with an effortless freestyle, riffing on a classic Juicy J verse. He then drops the mic in dramatic fashion, not unlike our 44th president at his final White House Correspondents’ Dinner. We as an audience are left feeling blessed, moved, and like we truly learned something today.

Zack Fox is on The Cave this week. He is perhaps best known for his work on the Manhattan Project under J. Robert Oppenheimer, his involvement in Supreme Court case Korematsu v. United States, and of course his role as host of Chef’s Table on Netflix. Today he gives us mental illness bars, Gaza bars, dick in Doritos dust bars, among many other pressing and controversial modern issues. He is not afraid to say what needs to be said about dipping his balls in thousand island dressing, despite much opposition and pressure from both the Democratic party and the GOP. “We will not be silenced,” declared a spokesman from his team earlier this week during a press conference. But where would Zack’s mission be without the support of Kenny Beats, who somehow put together a soundscape reminiscent of our lord and savior Jesus Christ crip-walking for three days straight on his way back from crucifixion.

This week on The Cave, we have the illustrious Vince Staples in our presence. And at his behest, the honorable Kenneth Beats III. Kenny, who is definitely and most certainly not a member of any state police force or federal law enforcement agency administered by the Department of Justice, puts together an instrumental of global significance with massive geopolitical implications. Vince then effortlessly dismantles the Kenny Beat and continues on with his life through the exit door of The Cave. The pair behind classic 2018 album FM! does not disappoint, nor would you have ever expected them to. Just another day on the most compelling show on YouTube.

Kicking off this season is Detroit legend Danny Brown. We learn about how Kenny and Danny’s paths crossed for the first time almost a decade ago. We learn about how the real life Pootie Tang saved Danny’s life with a belt. We learn the WiFi network. And by the end, we all learn something about ourselves.

This week on The Cave we welcome Atlanta’s 6lack. He’s here not to sing but to rap, bringing capital B Bars to our humble show. Kenny cooks up a New York style, getting money on the block in Brooklyn type beat, inspired by thumbing through all the fake hundreds that have accumulated in the studio. We learn about 6lack’s process, that he hasn’t physically written his music since 2010. We learn about his history with battle rap, and his transition to singing. We learn that with enough time and personal, private effort, anyone could become a vocalist. Just don’t let anyone hear your shit for a while. And finally, we hear one of the most effortless freestyles ever witnessed on this show. So effortless in fact, that after the first few bars, 6lack takes a seat and raps the rest of it on the DOTS couch. By the end, we are left with the overwhelming feeling of having been given more than enough bars.

Welcome back to The Cave, where today we are joined by our first guest from across the pond, U.K. legend slowthai. His vibe of choice: a combination of strippers, Scarface, and pasta. Kenny expertly constructs a Nando’s PERi-PERi sauce infused instrumental while slowthai initiates his transcendental, inner-truth-seeking creative process. After a series of advanced meditative techniques, including the ancient Taoist practice known in some rare traditional circles as the “outdoor cigarette and slow kick,” thai was ready to face the booth. His freestyle gives us entry to what English philosopher Aldous Huxley referred to as the doors of perception. Replete with the keys to enlightenment, slowthai’s bars begin to spill over like nectar of the Olympian gods overflowing their amphora vessels. Not long after rejecting the confines of the beat and continuing on into a cappella, our guest is asked to “get out the booth bruh, you’re done,” by which he graciously abides.

Yes, The Cave has historically featured the making of beats and the rappers that rap over those beats, but what is a show without evolution and expansion? Did The Wire not explore a different Baltimore institution with each season? Did Spongebob Squarepants shy away from innovation out of some misplaced sense of fear that in doing so it may alienate its core audience? The answer, as you may have already deduced, is “no.” And in our case, what this all means is that for the first time in our beloved program’s history are we bringing true instrumentation into the creative process. This week’s esteemed guest and former Guitar Center sales associate, Omar Apollo, turns the studio into a veritable jam session by busting out the bass guitar and rigging its output to Kenny’s Ableton grid. What results is something truly new and refreshing.

This week on The Cave, we are joined by Detroit native TeeJayx6. He’s been called many things. Forbes named him “The Frank Abagnale of the SoundCloud generation.” The New Yorker referred to him as “The John Nash of pin numbers.” WIRED crowned him “The Bitcoin Bully.” What he’s done for the scamming community cannot be overstated. His painstakingly thorough yet accessible instructional scamming walk-throughs have democratized the art of credit card fraud, allowing anyone with an internet connection to participate in what has historically been an elitist meritocracy. He’s also pioneered the effort of humanizing swipers worldwide through his music, bringing toward mainstream consciousness a group of people who have been consistently relegated to the fringes of society.

This week on The Cave we have special guest Boogie. As we wait for the magic to begin, we sit with him and Kenny discussing the ethical implications of the all too common Postmates deliver-and-dip practice, wherein a Postmate will come to your location and pretend to have dropped off your food—but by the time you open your door, they’ve disappeared with both your order and their fee. It seems they wanted to have your cake and eat it too. We then get to watch Boogie perform what may be the most unceremonious Futsal Shuffle known to man so far. And finally, once Kenny puts the final polishes on what Boogie requested to be a soulful instrumental, we see our guest give us one of the show’s more laid-back freestyles, concluding of course with a condemnation of runaway Postmates. Hopefully, this country’s judiciary system will eventually pass some consumer protection legislature to regulate these misdeeds more rigorously.

In the Greek philosopher Plato’s seminal work, Republic, the famous allegory of the cave describes a group of people staring at a wall. These cave dwellers concern themselves with nothing except what’s inside the cave and what’s projected onto the wall. As objects pass through the light of a fire, shadows form on the wall and create reality. They never leave the cave to find out what lies beyond, nor realize that the shadows on the wall are not reality but merely a consequence of a larger reality. Philosophers of their time celebrated themselves for reaching out toward the sun, but the cave dwellers were right to stick to what they knew, watching shadow puppets on the wall and chilling by the fire. That sounds better than most outdoor activities. What does this mean? I don’t know, I don’t even think people read this far into the descriptions. You should be watching the video instead of scrolling this far down, truly. It’s Isaiah Rashad the most anticipated guest of this show’s history.

Back at it with ¼ Italian Mac DeMarco. We went for sort of a Godfather pt. II theme with this one. The cigar smoke wafted us into an osteria with every pasta shape you could imagine. Fusilli. Orecchiette. Tagliatelle. You name it. The music just developed organically from there. At some point in this video you may wonder: what the fuck am I watching? That’s a great question but I don’t know the answer. What I do know is that I’m scared because for the first time, my anonymous identity as YouTube description author was almost compromised in this episode. I might as well get ahead of it, so I confess: I’ve been living in the attic of The Cave now for months unbeknownst to Kenny or any guests. I make little meals every day, blow big gas (second hand from downstairs mostly), and I spend weeks at a time writing these YouTube descriptions. It’s my only creative outlet and it’s sacred to me. Rent in Los Angeles is steep as ever, and DOTS only pays me 15k per description. I need to cut costs.

Welcome back to the Cave. I’ve been living in the attic of Kenny’s studio now for several months. I think this is week 15. It’s hard to tell at this point. The days are running together. I’ve been surviving off Yerba Mate and Wingstop leftovers that I occasionally find at night. I make my moves swiftly and strategically, only when I know Kenny won’t be around to see. Sometimes I think he knows I’m up here and is just biding his time, waiting until the perfect moment to strike me with a vintage synthesizer. Occasionally, when he’s downstairs making beats at high volume, I’ll sing to myself or write little raps that no one will ever hear. I have this fantasy where one day I just go down there and he doesn’t trip or anything, just invites me into The Cave for a special guest episode. Wait, he just walked into the studio. I need to lie completely still. I don’t know if he can hear me typing this. Until next time friends, please enjoy Episode 3 of this season, with guest Kenny Mason.

It’s Day 112 of my self-imposed captivity in Kenny’s attic. I’ve become delirious, and I’ve lost at least 20 pounds. I haven’t found much to eat, so I’ve been subsisting on wood shavings and insulation I’ve gathered from the inner walls of the space. One night, I got so hungry that I risked climbing down the ladder into the studio, hoping to find some kind of forgotten Postmates delivery. Unfortunately, when I reached the floor, I stepped on a nail. I had to think fast, I was bleeding profusely and rapidly losing consciousness. I removed my DOTS t-shirt and wrapped it around my wound, tightening it just in time. In that moment I wondered, was that a trap? Had Kenny intended for me to climb down those steps and injure myself? Did he think it could stop me? I laughed to myself. It’s gonna take more than entry level Home Alone tactics to stop me. All I know is this is an act of war. I can't show weakness. I'll have updates next week. Anyways, episode of The Cave, starring Teezo Touchdown.

I’ve been living in the attic of The Cave for as long as I can remember. It’s hard for me to picture life before. While harvesting my daily meal, wood shavings and insulation, I noticed what appeared to be a human-sized oval in the wall. There seemed to be no one else in this space, but there were lampposts glowing in the distance. Then, in the distance, I saw it. A red Tesla Model X. As I approached the vehicle I sensed something’s not right. I looked in the windows and there no was no one in there. Strange. Just as I started to panic, the wing doors of the Tesla lifted. With no other option in sight, I got in the passenger seat. The car started to move on its own. I’m typing to you now having been on this road for at least an hour. In the far distance I see a golden cityscape.Thats where this car is headed. Wish me luck everyone. I don’t know what the future ahead of me holds, but if you don’t hear from me in the next Cave YouTube video description, something terrible happened.

Last time I wrote to you, I had just found a portal in the attic of The Cave and bravely stepped into a strange new world. For the last 55 days, a driverless Tesla has been transporting me down a long and winding road. After 154 days in Kenny’s attic, this all felt like the pinnacle of luxury. Strange how what we withhold from ourselves eventually becomes new to us again. I’ve spent my days listening to the music that came preloaded in the car. It’s mostly Carti leaks and white noise tracks. Today as I write this, I’ve finally arrived. The Tesla came to an unceremonious halt and the wing doors opened. Surrounding me was a massive golden cityThe ground beneath me, the buildings themselves—all solid gold. Then I hear something. It’s...I’m not sure? I know that sound from somewhere. Is that… an 808? I begin to follow the sound, but it’s faint and hard to locate due its low frequency. I can feel it though. As it passes through me my whole body resonates with its vibration.