Kirby Dominant had already lived the stuff of rap fairytales / nightmares by the time his name began ringing bells up and down the West Coast’s ‘90s underground scene. Reared in the same Bay Area circles that produced the Living Legends and Mystik Journeymen who took the independent rap hustle to its bare essentials – a loud mouth, a pair of sturdy legs, and a backpack full of self-produced cassettes – Kirby sealed his worldwide reputation as a freestyle rap prodigy, world-class battle rapper and impossibly prolific studio rat. Champagne Nightmares is his second collaboration with Canadian producer Factor. They call themselves Paranoid Castle, and the name fits the music: hulking, ornate beats atop which Kirby is an elephant on a tightrope, executing a delicate, hour-long balancing act between singing and rapping, pleasure and doubt. Kirby is a grown man with a lot of lives behind him, just trying to figure out how to enjoy this life without hurting anybody, including himself. Champagne Nightmares drops August 30.