Metropolis

Imagine Sun Ra time-traveling to the techno-dystopia in Blade Runner, Marty McFly piloting the DeLorean through the cyberpunk cityscape in Akira. Now you're in the headspace to digest Metropolis, the 2022 album of time-traveling dispatches from Nashville multi-instrumentalist, producer, and rapper Namir Blade. Inspired by and named after the 2001 anime Metropolis and it's 1927 predecessor, these 16 tracks are chapters of a speculative memoir unstuck in time, a quest for joy as late-stage capitalism crumbles looking wearily to a near-future dominated by tech oligarchs. In his most vulnerable writing yet, Namir shirks wallowing in loneliness and algorithm-induced self-doubt by going to therapy, making art on his terms, and learning to cherish his hooptie.