Curly Castro opens his album Yaphet with a six-minute posse cut, Black Don't Crack

Curly Castro has released an album called Yaphet, and the first thing on it is a six-minute track with six guests on it. Black Don't Crack features billy woods, Fatboi Sharif, Blueprint, Brian Ennals, SKECH185 and AJ Suede, which is most of one wing of American underground rap arriving at once.

A posse cut in that position is a statement about company. Opening an album with a track you share with six other rappers means the first voice a listener hears is not necessarily yours, and it frames the record as belonging to a scene rather than to one person.

Stereogum, which posted the song, was candid about why the guest names went in its own headline rather than the album title: a list of underground rap names draws clicks in a way that an album announcement does not. It also noted what the track actually sounds like, comparing the roll call to the Backwoodz Studioz roster assembling for a team-up.

That comparison is the useful part. billy woods is the most widely reviewed rapper in this orbit, and Fatboi Sharif, Brian Ennals, SKECH185 and AJ Suede all work in the same dense, sample-heavy, deliberately uncommercial register. Blueprint comes from a slightly different lineage in Ohio, which gives the track a second centre of gravity.

Castro is from Philadelphia and has spent years building this catalogue away from the majors. Yaphet is out now. No label, tracklist or physical release details were given in the report, and no tour dates have been announced with it.

The album sits on the release calendar and on our hip-hop hub. billy woods also played the Tiny Desk with a full band as half of Armand Hammer in July.