“Skates & Crates” by Shaheed and DJ Supreme

This February, fans are getting excited over “Skates & Crates,” the latest collaborative single from Shaheed and DJ Supreme, and it’s not solely because of the typical buzz that follows these two indie rap icons. “Skates & Crates” wastes no time throwing various shades of dark smoke at us in its haunting instrumentation, which is steered by an uncompromising bassline from start to finish. Golden grooves and sweet verses are only a couple of ingredients in this fine-tuned audiological feast, and for my money, hip-hop doesn’t get much better than what Shaheed and DJ Supreme have done with it in this single. 

For being a collaboration between two big personalities who are no strangers to the studio, “Skates & Crates” is sublimely fluid and progressively stylized. The pulsating percussion is the centerpiece holding the cadence of the verses together, and with the hook bearing down on it like a predator in pursuit of its prey, the bassline acts as the most textured force in the whole of the melody. It takes every subtle intricacy in this track to make it the fireworks display that it ultimately is, and if that isn’t the definition of collaborative prowess at its tightest, then I don’t know what is. 

“Skates & Crates” boasts a refined production in that the tonality of the music is highlighted in the master mix without any barriers.

What’s more, we never have to search through the ocean of samples to figure out precisely where a particular strand of tone or physicality is originating from. The beats are tethered to the drum track through an almost funk-tinged treatment of their relationship with the bass, and while the vocals are constantly drawing our focus back towards the interplay here, the song never devolves into a lopsided mess of lyrics and reckless rhythm; something that, in all actuality, isn’t as simple to pull off as it might sound in theory. 

There are a lot of really organic elements in this single that make it undeniably superior to the vast majority of rap tracks that are currently ruling over the charts. Every ounce of gusto in the vocal is tempered by the industrial rhythm in the percussion, but the grind of the mix never intrudes upon the individualized textures of each respective component in the music. It’s a complicated track, to put it mildly, but not so much that it’s repellent to the casual fan. 

You don’t have to be big into hip-hop to dig “Skates & Crates,” but for those of us who live and die by a slick set of beats, this is a tasty contribution to the growing list of hits we’ve heard in 2022 and 2023. Shaheed and DJ Supreme pull out all the stops to deliver what is essentially a clinic on their core sound set to a vivacious rhythm that will rouse the attention of any serious music fan. They’ve got another track coming out this month as well, but in a testament to their talents, I don’t know that they will be able to top what they’ve done here. 

Mindy McCall