premiere: hip-hop meets punk in mike ladd’s ‘river styx rider’ ft. tim lefebvre & donny mccaslin

A frenzied, rock-a-billy scented track of vintage sounds, swirls, and zips, backed by the strong and strange voice of Mike Ladd, “River Styx Rider” pays homage to punk-rock of days past. Taking no prisons from it’s vivid open to its sharp end, Aphrotek and Ladd show off their musical history chops with this kaleidoscopic picture of 1970s punk while bringing out its African roots on this bangin’ track.

“Yeah, we’ve recorded this track with Dom, Donny McCaslin and Tim Lefebvre and myself in NYC a few weeks before they started to work on David Bowie’s Blackstar album and then we sent it over to Mike before finishing to produce it back home,” Aphrotek tells AFROPUNK.

“There’s a lot of that 70s energy that flows in this music, Dom and Tim’s attitude in music definitely contribute to the reminiscence of this kind of sound, and my approach to keyboards comes from the free-funk of the 70s like the Rotary Connection or the Headhunters with Herbie. It automatically transpires out when all these influences come together.”