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V: ILLICIT

V: ILLICIT is an album about what it means to be dope. Dope is not only a measure of quality or coolness, it is rooted in the experiences of Black people in the U.S. since its beginnings. Those experiences include the “War On Drugs,” which was really a war on people, and its casualties and aftermath. Dopeness predates this focus on drugs and the people projected as their primary sellers, users, and abusers. It is also about permission and sanctioning. Dope is distinct from drugs like illegal is distinct from legal and illicit is distinct from licit. Dopeness relates to the histories of people treated as property, chattel, technology—labeled legal or illegal, human or something other than. V: ILLICIT is an album made in the presence and aftermath of these histories, as an attempt to do what Hip-Hop has done for the past half-century: to make art—beautiful, ugly, abundant, and otherwise—from the ruins of war and the carnage it leaves.

Do Nothing (Lyric Video)

a dark blue-gray sky foregrounded with trees and flooded street overlaid with an image of a Black man.

i used

to love

to dream

i used to love to dream is a mixtape/e/ssay that performs hip-hop scholarship, using sampled & live instrumentation; repurposed music, film, & news clips; & original rap lyrics. As a genre, the mixtap/e/ssay brings together the mixtape & the personal and scholarly essays. i used to love to dream names Decatur, Illinois—A.D. Carson’s hometown—as a reference point for place- & time-specific rapped ruminations about the ideas of growing up, moving away, & pondering one’s life choices. At the same time, the tracks attempt to account for moral, philosophical, & ethical dimensions undergirding unease about authenticity, or staying true to oneself & to one’s city or neighborhood, as well as the external factors that contribute to such feelings. Using the local to ask questions about the global, i used to love to dream highlights outlooks on Black life.

A red, white, and black sticker that reads "A.D. Carson ILLICIT A Mixtap/e/ssay" with a modified skull and bones graphic on a black background with a black and white parental advisory in the bottom right corner

iV: TALKING TO GHOSTS

iv: talking to ghosts deals with especially pertinent issues surrounding mental health and the impact of living with the deaths of several close family members and friends from Covid and other health crises and from murder.