mr. master and his never-ending rap project
Through nerdcore hip-hop, mr. master’s ambitious ‘ultra’ redefines how music gets released.
Today, the Spotlight is On Gabriel Jacob Luansing, who produces music under the name mr. master.
For over six years, Gabriel has been working on an ever-expanding experimental hip-hop project called ‘ultra,’ which, as of this recording, currently spans 138 songs, clocking over six hours of music.
‘ultra’ is a project meant to be dived deep into, and we do, discussing the intention and aims of the project, artistic identity and much more.
We would like to encourage listeners to spend some time with even a small part of ‘ultra’ before listening to this discussion — ideally on shuffle. You’ll find a link to the project in the show notes below.
Please enjoy ‘ultra’ and our discussion with Gabriel Jacob Luansing, a/k/a mr. master.
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Dig Deeper:
• Follow mr. master on SoundCloud, Instagram, and YouTube.
• Listen to mr. master’s ‘ultra’ project on SoundCloud
• mr. master’s lyrics on Genius
• A Loner and A Rebel: A Tribute to Paul Reubens
• A Crisis of Crises: What is the Meta-Crisis?
• Bonus Tracks blog: Ultramagnetic MCs
• A Guide to Kool Keith’s Oddball Rap on Bandcamp
• ‘Dr. Octagonecologyst’: Dr. Octagon’s Avant Rap Masterpiece
• Nerdcore Music: 12 Notable Nerdcore Artists
• MC Frontalot
• MC Lars
• How Do You Tell the Story of 50 Years of Hip-Hop?
• mr. master’s high-speed rap recommendations:
• Lungs & Phiik - “Off Top”
• YL & Starker - “Greed”
• Akai Solo - “Marine Snow”
• mr. master - “spill”
• mr. master - “heartsworn”
• Andrea Gibson
• Sleaford Mods
• Daniel Schmachtenberger
• Tristan Harris - Facebook & Rethinking Big Tech | The Daily Show
• Jamie Wheal Is Austin’s Cassandra of Techno-Optimism
• Celebrating 40 years of La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela’s Dream House
• Henry Darger
• Pigeons and Planes interview with mr. master
• The man who built his own cathedral
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Gabriel Jacob Luansing
Rapper / Producer / Singer / Spoken Word Poet
I've been working on an experimental hip-hop project called "ultra" for six years, which currently sits at 133 songs, about six hours of music. Noteworthy elements include: radical interdisciplinary synthesis, in both songwriting and my approach to studying at university; incorporation of upper division of academic material into rap verses; spoken word poetry's role in the writing style; the relevance of the collection of Broadway karaoke covers to the project; the synth-punk song; and many more. It's a project meant to be dived deep into, so I encourage anyone to shuffle the playlist and see what emerges. Also, here's a Spotify playlist with previous podcast conversations: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3j2VZYdJcSI2QxUDPSHSdg?si=mGkqYWvLQxGz20s-Vehctw
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