West Indies. Brooklyn. West Philly. Curly Castro is a son of all three lands, channeling them on his newest album TOSH, an LP inspired by equal parts George Orwell, Spike Lee, and MF Doom. Island riddims collide with Gotham drums. Cannabis scented bass linea face off with ’80s ghetto blasters bumping Public Enemy and Schooly D. This is activism for rebels who outlived the Decepticons of Brooklyn and the MOVE bombing of West Philly, while memorizing every word to Funcrusher Plus, Dah’ Shinin’, and Soul Revolution.

Historically, Curly Castro is no stranger to audiences, after touring with billy woods, PremRock & FreshKils, and Zilla Roca while opening for Digable Planets, Open Mike Eagle, Brand Nubian, The Last Poets, and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony. He has garnered rave reviews from Dead End Hip Hop, Impose Magazine, Passion of the Weiss, DJ Booth, Tiny Mix Tapes, HipHopDX, and UGS Mag, from his breakout debut LP FIDEL on Man Bites Dog Records in 2013, the EP Brody in 2014, and his collaborative LP ReStroy and DeBuild with DJ Fakts One in 2015.

Curly Castro kept busy smoking a pipe like Papa Legba while dropping standout verses with his signature rasp on seminal albums from billy woods (Today, I Wrote Nothing), Armand Hammer (ROME), Willie Green (Doc Savage), Uncommon NASA (New York Telephone), and Career Crooks (Good Luck With That).

For TOSH, Castro enlisted an all-star lineup of beatsmiths to combine classic east coast rap with the woozy bottom end of dub music : Willie Green, Blueprint, Blockhead, Messiah Musick, Dos4gw, and Wrecking Crew co-pilots Zilla Rocca and Small Professor. Guest raps from PremRock, Defcee, ELUCID, billy woods and Zilla Rocca help reinforce the ideas of Peter Tosh, who once strummed a guitar fashioned after an assault rifle: music can be a weapon. From the African history seminar of “Dark Skinned Drum”, to appreciating jerk chicken spots on “Ital You Can Eat” featuring billy woods, Castro also tells stories of subway robberies (“Night Terra Fabulous” produced by Uncommon NASA) and black exceptionalism (“Emory Doug” produced by ELUCID) with valor and slang.

TOSH is vibrant and unapologetic, intelligent and combustible. Speakers are annhilated. Civil rights leaders are immortalized. Razors are flashed. Lessons are heeded while weed is passed back and forth. Curly Castro is the indie rap rebel for protests and sound clashes.