I’d been set to write about Kevin Gates’s brand-new mixtape, By Any Means, when I noticed local rapper Chandler London had dropped a new EP from nowhere—or perhaps deep space, which is kind of what the new Ritchie: A Space Odyssey revolves around. London calls it the introduction to a space rap opera, an idea that he’s been working on for six years (at least that’s what he told Fake Shore Drive). It didn’t take London quite as long to record the EP, as he used instrumentals from Satellite Flight: The Journey to Mother Moon, an album Cleveland MC Kid Cudi released unexpectedly exactly three weeks before Ritchie came out. Cudi isn’t the only interstellar-minded pop star whose influence appears on the EP—David Bowie is right there in the title of the opening song, “Space Oddity.”
Leor Galil writes about hip-hop every Wednesday.
