The Video:
On Friday, Mach-Hommy released #RICHAXXHAITIAN, a wide-ranging and ambitious album that embodies the ethos of his homeland of Haiti and its diaspora. This weekend, on Haitian Flag Day, the acclaimed artist starred with KAYTRANADA and 03 Greedo in the video for the album’s title track “#RICHAXXHAITIAN.” Directed and edited by Lasheef Ecks with co-directors Maxx and Madison, the richly symbolic video fits the song’s summer-ready vibe, while depicting a glorious vision of a utopian future for Haiti and its people. Set in sunny Southern California, the short film purposefully evokes the glamor and class of Old Hollywood, as Mach, Greedo, and KAYTRA perform by the pool with a cadre of water nymphs, all dressed in white. When the sun goes down the party moves inside, the three artists and the nymphs furiously dance, exorcizing years’ worth of demons via the power of music. Towards the end of the video, L.A. native 03 Greedo performs in his home city, dramatizing the union of street culture and high art that Mach-Hommy has perfected during his illustrious career.
The futuristic “#RICHAXXHAITIAN” is the first music video from #RICHAXXHAITIAN, the fourth album in a tetralogy of albums that examine Mach-Hommy’s relationship with his homeland, following 2016’s H.B.O. (Haitian Body Odor), and his two acclaimed 2021 albums, Pray For Haitiand Balens Cho (Hot Candles). #RICHAXXHAITIAN is a small musical panacea for his homeland amidst poverty and political strife, combating the public’s negative images of Haiti by focusing on the greatness and prosperity of the country’s diaspora. Over the course of the album, Mach-Hommy emphasizes the country’s potential, strategizing ways that his troubled homeland could become an exemplar of Black cultural and economic excellence.
#RICHAXXHAITIAN garnered massive acclaim upon its release, earning coverage from the likes of Pitchfork, HYPEBEAST, NPR, CLASH, and many others. The album welcomes collaborators new and old to help flesh out Mach-Hommy’s sound, including Black Thought, Roc Marciano, Tha God Fahim, Your Old Droog, Drea D’Nur, and Big Cheeko, plus producers like Grammy-winner Conductor Williams, Grammy-nominated producer Quelle Chris, longtime associate Sadhu Gold, and others.
Attempting to transform our modern dystopia into a utopia using only his rhymes and force of will, Mach-Hommy invites us all, from his most loyal investors to his freshest fans, to imagine a brand new world. With #RICHAXXHAITIAN, that seemingly impossible dream creeps ever closer.
“I’ve always wanted to rep for Haiti and the cultural and intellectual richness we’ve provided the world,” Mach-Hommy says. “From our musical styles like kontradans that have influenced world music, our natural resources which provide so much raw material for so many important advancements in technology, our thinkers that pioneered philosophical movements and Black pride, and our spiritual leaders who kept the religious traditions of Guinea alive and intact, the religious traditions of Ayiti….”
Watch “#RICHAXXHAITIAN” ft. KAYTRANADA & 03 Greedo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfZhtaL-pwU
Stream #RICHAXXHAITIAN: https://too.fm/kxjk19e | apple
Buy #RICHAXXHATIAN on vinyl, CD, and cassette at Zotanica
Read more about #RICHAXXHAITIAN HERE
#RICHAXXHAITIAN tracklist:
1 (…) (beat curated by August Fanon)
2 ANTONOMASIA (featuring Roc Marciano) (beat curated by Sadhu Gold)
3 POLITickle (featuring Drea D’Nur) (beat curated by Sadhu Gold)
4 SONJE (featuring HEPHZIBAH – production and composition by the same)
5 PADON (featuring Tha God Fahim) (beat curated by Sadhu Gold)
6 EMPTY SPACES (featuring Your Old Droog) (beat curated by Sadhu Gold)
7 SUR LE PONT d’AVIGNON (Reparation #1) (production by Conductor Williams)
8 XEROX CLAT (special guest Haitian Jack) (production by Conductor Williams)
9 GORGON ZOE LAN (beat curated by Sadhu Gold)
10 THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW (beat curated by Sadhu Gold)
11 COPY COLD (featuring BLACK THOUGHT) (production by Quelle Chris)
12 #RICHAXXHAITIAN (featuring 03 GREEDO) (produced by KAYTRANADA)
13 LON LON (curated by Fortes)
14 AUX BON PARFUMS (beat curated by Messiah Muzik)
15 SAME 24 (featuring Big Cheeko)
16 GUGGENHEIM JEUNE (beat curated by Sadhu Gold)
17 HOLY ____. (production by Conductor Williams)
Photo credit: Matthew Roharik
Please contact Michelle or Kevin for more info.
The Background:
Defying convention and transcending interpretation as he blazes his own path through the music industry, Mach-Hommy is a true original. The prolific Haitian-American artist can be hard to track, physically and metaphysically: his face and birth name remain a mystery, he does not use social media, and his Machography spans more than 50 albums, some only available in limited-edition physical formats, some gone forever as limited-edition digital releases. When they’re out in the world, Mach exhibits them like high art, selling them at prices that reflect their true value, not the artificially deflated value imposed upon music by the streaming age. Mach-Hommy’s incisive lyrics probe the frailty of the human condition, arranged into alchemical verses that draw instant rap hands from even the most-seasoned hip-hop head (“…every bar is rap chemistry” – Rolling Stone; “Over the past five years, Mach has made some of the strangest, most incisive, most tantalizingly intertextual rap music in the world” – GQ).
Exclusivity has been an integral part of Mach’s brand, giving off the aura of a man rapping from the penthouse of a billion-dollar high-rise complex, covered with spray painted Basquiat tags, hidden in the middle of a magic forest only accessible by solving age-old riddles. But now, Mach-Hommy is interested in being more forward-facing. “I’m on my Hommy Appleseed shit,” he says. “Now that I’ve done the so-called impossible, the next thing for me to do is make sure this music spreads all over—making sure samples are cleared so the music can play wherever I need it to play. I may have been contracting before because that was what was good for me in that place. Now I’m in a place where I should expand. But don’t expect to see anything weighing down the impact and the style of how I present material. I’m still gonna be Mach-Hommy.”
#RICHAXXHAITIAN, Mach’s new album, is now streaming on all platforms, and is available for purchase on vinyl, CD, and cassette at his official store.
Critical Praise:
Read Mach-Hommy’s 3-Part FADER Cover Story (written in part by Mach himself): 1 | 2 | 3
“Over the past five years, Mach has made some of the strangest, most incisive, most tantalizingly intertextual rap music in the world…He has a pliable voice that effectively communicates contempt (often) or longing (selectively); his writing seems like collage until it doesn’t, breaking from interpolated lyrics and allusion into richly rendered scenes from his own memory.” – GQ
“…every bar is rap chemistry” – Rolling Stone
“The charms of Hommy’s music are on full display as he moves slickly, with casually clever wordplay, through well-curated soul samples.” – The New Yorker
“…tightly constructed yet freely floating through hip-hop’s past and present like ghosts in Gore-Tex jackets.” – Pitchfork
“Mach is worldly the way you imagine a spy would be, or at least upper management in a global oil conglomerate: He knows how to order coffee in Damascus and a hit in Paris, knows which local toughs to muscle out and which to charm into his service.” – Pitchfork”
“Hip-hop heads love to talk about that feeling. It’s a nebulous concept, at times an old-head argument to dismiss new folks, and in other instances a passionate plea to try and articulate what can be so powerful and transformative about hip-hop. That feeling, while oftentimes trite, is the best way to convey to a latecomer what makes Mach-Hommy the most exciting MC today.” – Billboard
“His work is often crammed with diasporic twoness, but crammed with other doublenesses, too.” – NPR
“Mach-Hommy is special. He can rap absurdly well, and he could have a career on that alone, but he doesn’t seem to want it. Instead, he seems to want to exist in a lane that did not exist before him. He’s pulling it off.” – Stereogum
Mach-Hommy: official site | zotanica | youtube | spotify | apple
Watch “#RICHAXXHAITIAN” ft. KAYTRANADA & 03 Greedo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfZhtaL-pwU
#RICHAXXHAITIAN: https://too.fm/kxjk19e | apple
“#RICHAXXHAITIAN” ft. 03 Greedo & KAYTRANADA: https://too.fm/zqqamx7