Cakes da Killa Svengali Review: An All-Too-Brief Personal Narrative

Queer New York rapper Cakes da Killa, born Rashard Bradshaw, operates within a seemingly alternate timeline where hip-house wasn’t hastily replaced with gangsta rap and commercial hip-hop as rap’s primary modes in the 1990s. His singles “Shots Fired” and “Don Dada” are as aggressive they are danceable, barely containing their fury and propelled by sirens and metallic snares.

But even the most dance-oriented songs on Bradshaw’s second studio album, Svengali, are mellower than his past efforts, especially his two Muvaland EPs. The album also brings a new conceptual focus to his work. Carefully sequenced, with instrumentals and spoken-word interludes like “La Cocaina,” in which his cousin, Carolina, speaks in French about her own sexual misadventures, Svengali traces a personal narrative about growing weary of casual sex and embracing love, all in the span of just half an hour.

Bradshaw describes objectification as an obstacle to pleasure on “W4TN,” an acronym for “wild for the night.” In the past, he’s rapped about sex fearlessly, but tracks like “Svengali” shows a different side: “You’re touching me, but are you feeling me?”

Elsewhere, “Luvs Me Not,” which features a murky, heavily filtered beat, mixes calls to “shake your body, work your body” with pensive musings about whether Bradshaw’s lover actually cares about him. The rapper’s hedonism—tellingly, also the title of his first album—is modulated by a more introspective tone here, as in the way he expresses his lust and still calls for a partner “who can call me out on my bullshit.”

Near the end of Svengali, on the house-driven “Love Me Harder,” Bradshaw declares, “I ain’t got time for no games, I’m pushing 30,” and begs his partner to “think harder before you let me go.” Which is unfortunate given how the album then closes with a 90-second instrumental that detracts from the personal epiphany Bradshaw so painstakingly paints throughout.