Boots Riley, The Coup

The Coup

The Coup’s most recent album, Pick A Bigger Weapon, kicks off with a classic Boots Riley line — “I’m a walking contradiction/Like bullets and love mixin’…” — and then it just gets better. After a 16-year career that has defined the word “uncompromising”, the Coup returned armed with bigger funk and taller tales.

Backed by a stellar recording band that includes Audioslave’s Tom Morello, Dwayne Wiggins, and veterans of Parliament-Funkadelic, the Gap Band, Toni! Tony! Toné!, Jesse Johnson, and Frankie Beverly and Maze, the sound is a little edgier on this record and the beats a little faster.” The Coup’s uniquely bent grooves point to “Dirty Mind”-era Prince, late-80s Too Short, and the trunk-rattling hyphy sonics of the New Bay movement.