Darc Mind

Revisiting Symptomatic Of A Greater Ill & further works by Kevroc and X-Ray, AKA Darc Mind

It’s hard to find better words than pedestrian’s liner notes to describe this evergreen mid-90s gem:

It somehow missed me when anticon un-earthed their shelved Loud/RCA album in 2006, but I finally realized the greatness of Darc Mind and have been catching up on the past works of Kevroc and X-Ray, thanks to the vast archives at xraydamindbenda.bandcamp.com, curated by X-Ray (AKA King Ceasar/etc), best known for his work as a producer and MC for Monsta Island Czars.

While X-Ray’s production, from then til now, as well as his rhyming, is fantastic, quintessential NYC underground hip hop, I was initially struck by Kevroc, whose delivery is trumped only by his lyrics. With soothing baritone, nimble dexterity, poetic language, and an English professor’s vocabulary, he was and is a true wizard on the mic.

As I catch up on the Darc Mind discography, including Symptomatic Of A Greater Ill (1997/2006), Bipolar (2006), Antediluvian (2013), What Happened To The Art (2019), and Darc Mind Wuz Here (2022), I’ve found that they’ve struck a fine balance between consistency and evolution. A rich body of work which I highly recommend.

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