Album Review: Kerser - KING

Kerser’s success demands an explanation.

How has Kers, by walking the Australian MC’s well trodden path of battle rap and brutal delivery, found himself near enough the top of the heap?

On the mic Kerser seems so near and so immediate you could touch him. So while he drifts of into the harshness, violence, and anger that would otherwise alienate (many of) us, Kers’ presence – the feeling that we walk with him –holds our attention. Here the best example of that is Forever. Our host’s guttural, grinding delivery gives way to a reflective swoon of a chorus. Punctuated by sweetness, Kerser is tactile: harsh and physical. C-Town is surprisingly approachable: another example of Kerser taking otherwise confronting content while excluding no one.

Of course, any Kerser release is also a Nebs release. Kerser acknowledged as much by calling his debut The Nebulizer. Nebs proved he’s one of Australia’s best beatsmiths first with his clique That’s Them. He proves it again here, probably peaking with the stop-start other-worldliness of Smoking Up.

On that track Kers tries to explain, “why they all listen, from the kids in the commissions to the people running businesses”. The more time you spend with Kerser, the more you realise he’s eloquent, playful, light-hearted, endearing: all with a menacing undercurrent. That’s a set of traits that describes all of the most commercially successful rappers of the last 20 years. Perhaps success isn’t the issue. With attributes like that, how could he fail?