It’s a label and a collective, though its members don’t often use those words, choosing instead to call it a “syndicate” or resisting classification entirely. Some of their songs seem to want to be taken seriously, and there are plenty of earnest moments in the Dark World catalog alongside all the jokes.Ī lot of their music is just as ambiguous, not just defying genre but also frequently defying normal standards of taste. Within the scene, Lucas is like some combination of coach, starting forward, and team mascot. He puts in work every day to keep energy up: booking shows, emailing music blogs, and selling one-off merch pieces via Twitter DMs. “It’s been his ship since day one,” says Sen Morimoto, a Japanese-American multi-instrumentalist who’s known Lucas since middle school. “He’s good at keeping everyone together and giving everyone their shine.” Lucas is also probably the scene’s most visible character.
This fall, he’ll head on tour with Wiki, the Manhattan rapper best known as a member of Ratking. On his own songs, Lucas raps about living in Western Mass. I grew up in the suburbs, where everyone hates one another, goes “Debt Collector,” a mumbly track that also mentions buying blunt wraps at Cumberland Farms, or “Cumby’s,” a regional convenience store. It’s the sort of day-in-the-life poetry that a lot of the most celebrated hip-hop is known for, but coming from a gangly redhead who lives in the middle of nowhere, it feels original, goofy, and a little sad.