The mysterious horrorcore rapper talks Chief Keef, witch house, anti-fascism, and more
Sematary is the kind of artist who immediately inspires obsession. There’s little information about him online, and his social media presence seems to only muddy the waters further. His Instagram account is full of distorted photos of knives, Necromicons, various gas station snacks, and an impressive True Religion collection. His Twitter offers few clues as well. And this is all ignoring the fact that his music is an excitingly perplexing mash of black metal samples, Chicago drill circa 2013, and icy-cold synths. Watching his music videos feels like you’re about to be the next victim in The Ring.
I’ll admit that I began dissecting Sematary’s music when I first came across it. The imagery of his lyrics mixes over-the-top horror references (The Babadook, Nazguls, and wearing human skin as a suit) with other moments that feel subtly more real, and, in turn, far more terrifying. At one point in Sematary’s solo mixtape, Rainbow Bridge, he compares himself to the legendary cryptid Mothman; at another, he lurks in the woods with dental floss. At a certain point while listening to his music, it becomes hard to imagine Sematary as just another rapper and not some killer hiding out near the creek in a forest.
It’s a compelling feeling to have while listening, and it’s made all the more exhilarating by the fact that the music is just as damn good. I spoke to Sematary fresh off the heels of his newest release, Hundred Acre Wrist. A joint project with frequent collaborator Ghost Mountain, the mixtape is strongly rooted in Salem-style witch house. When I ask what made him decide to revive the largely dormant sound, Sematary’s approach to music began to become more clear to me. “I’ve always liked witch house. I wanna bring witch house back. I just think it sounds cool.”
This response should serve as an eye-opener: there is no irony here. Sematary is running with whatever sounds dope, whether that’s Woods of Desolation or Ballout (or often both). He speaks relevantly of Salem, and even more so of Chief Keef. He refers to the Rainbow Bridge tapes as “borderline Chief Keef worship” and talks about his love for the rest of the early Glo Gang recordings. At one point, I mention seeing someone online refer to him as “just the horrorcore Chief Keef,” expecting him to elaborate on how this label is reductive. Instead, he says, “That’s the most correct label you could put on it. I wanna be that. That’s the ideal music, in my opinion.”
But it’s not just the sound of Chief Keef that Sematary is looking to bring into a new context, it’s also the attitude. “All the loosies from [the Bang 2 era] were just super anti-everything,” he tells me, which is something that is very apparent in his music. The general nihilism is undeniable, but there is also a thread of anti-establishment anarchism in many of the songs. When I ask him about his songs “1312” and “We Don’t Dial 911,” he grows a bit quieter and says, “I generally hate everyone that’s in power or will be in power, and generally am not very thrilled about any of it.” He goes on to deride the “fascist leanings of everything” and the ways companies control us.
The way he speaks about the current state of the world coincides with the most anti-establishment circles of music. At one point, Sematary talks about wanting to do “full on, proper punk music” in the future, expressing admiration for the Yung Lean punk side project Död Mark. He thinks about it for a moment before conceding. “I don’t know. No plans. I like mashing genres up.”
It’s this completely unhinged mashing of genres that is one of Hundred Acre Wrist’s calling cards. “Some of the beats on Hundred Acre Wrist I didn’t think were gonna sound witch house at all,” he says. “Like ‘Johnny Cutter,’ that’s an Electric Wizard sample, and it turned out pretty witch housey. You just gotta keep messing around.” Indeed, you have to mess around with the legendary doom metal band a fair bit to arrive at haunting electronica.
While it does pay obvious homage to Salem, other songs stray a bit from the path. The obvious candidates here are “Goodbye Horses” (yes, a cover of the Q Lazzarus song that you probably recall from Silence of the Lambs) and “Cleaver Valley.” I ask him about “Cleaver Valley” specifically, as it’s closer to Townes Van Zandt than it is to Balam Acab. “I don’t know, I just thought it would be cool to do a Charles Manson folk ballad, and then have the DJ run it back and stuff. Because that’s some advanced level shit.” When he puts it in these terms, the song’s place on the tape starts to make far more sense. “We thought it kinda fit the theme.”
Sematary seems to delight in jumping between sounds, but he still talks about his influences with adoration. Aside from Chief Keef and Salem, he also mentions Black Kray (“in 2015/2016,” specifically) and Yung Lean. “I would say those are my primary inspirations where I was like, if these guys can do it, I can do it.” Knowing he makes all of his beats (and sources all of his esoteric samples), I ask if he ever wanted to be a producer. “Being a producer seems horrible, so no, I never wanted to be a producer,” he says. “They get treated like shit. I was like, I should be a rapper. I can do what these guys do, and I can make the beats.”
The combination of his influences and his own unique style have led to a recent rise in recognition, but not too much has changed. “I guess we’ve started growing and stuff, which is super cool. I don’t know. I’ve just been kinda in my room this whole time. And I’m still kinda in my room, so it’s not that different. It’s cool to sell out merch and stuff like that really fast, that feels like a physical manifestation of all the hard work, so that feels good.”
While this homegrown success has been great, the frustration of not being able to perform is real. “It’s definitely a bummer. I’ve never played a show. We were about to do some right when COVID hit. I can’t wait to do shows.” I ask about what he wants a Sematary show to be like, and he once again brings up Yung Lean. “In a perfect world, it’d be cool to have some big ass, super big crucifixes, like a black metal show. I think Yung Lean did that once is where I got that idea. You know, smoke machines, all that, a big old TV. It’ll be good. When it happens, it’ll be good.” In the meantime, fans have plenty to look forward to. Rainbow Bridge 3 is coming, which he calls “the end of the trilogy…the final black metal mixtape.” As for what’s after that? “Probably more witch house. I wanna do, like, a scarecrow, cornfield mixtape.” I’ll leave the interpretation of that one up to you.