“Diamond Cutter” by Cadence Weapon. Taken from the album Breaking Kayfabe.
Breaking Kayfabe is one of my favourite rap albums: Cadence Weapon is the complete package, in terms of persona, lyrics, and production. This track, to my mind, isn’t one of its highlights — the story, about a prostitute, seems a little too conventionally thug for the oft-hipsterish Cadence. (Note the Kathleen Hanna references in this heart-wrencher, still the only rap track to have made me teary.)
Nonetheless, “Diamond Cutter” is still particularly interesting, but because of its glass-shattering beat. I can’t think of another hip-hop instrumental that changes as much: it serves as a fitting complement to the heavy uncertainty in the lyrics, as the beats waver like Cadence’s ambivalent narrator. This through-composition, in which the music changes continually without reversion, is integral in creating the rich tone of this track.
