Nocando, the rap name selected by James McCall, has been a fixture in LA rap for a minute, both as a former battle rapper and the founder of Hellfyre Club, a hip-hop collective that put out records by greats like Open Mike Eagle and Milo, along with Nocando’s own work. Now, he’s released an extremely personal and magnificent new album called Severed via Hellfyre, out earlier this summer, and today he’s shared a video for one of the album’s standout tracks, “El Camino,” that we’re happy to be premiering today.
As we noted when the song itself was released late last year, the track focuses on the American Dream deferred, and the accompanying self-directed video manages to capture some of those same sentiments in visual form. Like previous videos for “Mykraphone Myk” and the album’s title track, this video is dark and first person, centered almost exclusively on McCall spitting the raps straight into the camera with impressive imperiousness.
Whether it’s Nocando rapping next to a completely devastated El Camino in a junkyard, or murky shots of the less glamorous neighborhoods of LA at night, or even McCall, in his underwear and smoking a cigarette in his home, spewing fiery invectives about the way racism and privilege intersect in America to hold certain minorities and subsets of the population back, the entire thing is incredibly moving. The video was shot by Joseph Pfister, Sophie Phister, Andi MCfandi, and Nocando. Watch it above, and stream his entire album below, if you haven’t heard it yet.
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Severed is out now via Hellfyre Records. Get it here.
