{"product_id":"chester-watson-fish-dont-climb-on-trees-lp-cream-vinyl-indie-excl","title":"Chester Watson - fish don't climb on trees (LP - Cream Vinyl - Indie Exclusive)","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cmeta charset=\"utf-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eThough Chester Watson is only 26, the St. Louis-born rapper and producer has seen enough for several lifetimes—and raps as if he’s tapped into many more. But after a few years of highs, lows, and traumatic odysseys, he was able to stare straight into the abyss and conquer it. The regained confidence is exhibited on fish don’t climb trees, the largely self-produced \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"il\"\u003enew\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e album that reaffirms him as one of rap’s great auteurs. The willingness to both expand his repertoire laterally and dive deeper down each rabbit hole has made Watson’s one of the most quietly rewarding catalogs in hip-hop.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cspan\u003eBeing true to his fractured, discordant feelings requires a prismatic approach. And so you get fish’s exhilarating hairpin turns: from downtempo dub (“bora bora”) to 808s rattling through a haunted house (“tourniquet”), beats that sound as if they’re molting into \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"il\"\u003enew\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e shapes in real time (the two-song suite of “daze” and “grey theory”) to ones that that plunge to the bottom of a pocket (“spirits”). Over all of these, Watson proves more dexterous than ever as both a writer and vocalist, able to get his point across in ten syllables or two, in a full sprint or with his feet planted firmly in the mud. The album’s \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan class=\"il\"\u003etitle\u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003e comes from the maybe-apocryphal Einstein quote, about how a fish judged by its ability to climb trees will “spend its whole life believing it is stupid.” For Watson, this meant embracing the cheery first half \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003eof the quote (“Everybody is a genius”), but also being cognizant of the dark undercurrents that flow just beneath seemingly innocent misjudgments and mis-categorizations. “As a Black person, we’re always judged on criteria \u003c\/span\u003e\u003cspan\u003ethat are literally meaningless,” he says. With fish don’t climb trees, he’s committed to only one set of standards: his own.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"POW RECORDINGS","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":64214251962737,"sku":"L-POWRS010ICR","price":30.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0068\/0042\/files\/pow-recordings-chester-watson-fish-don-t-climb-on-trees-lp-cream-vinyl-indie-exclusive-lp-chester-watson-fish-don-t-climb-on-trees-lp-cream-vinyl-indie-exclusive-634457137998-l-powrs010icr-photo-photo-photo-1250144966.jpg?v=1784564866","url":"https:\/\/www.fatbeats.com\/products\/chester-watson-fish-dont-climb-on-trees-lp-cream-vinyl-indie-excl","provider":"Fat Beats","version":"1.0","type":"link"}