They smoke an absurd amount of weed, rap about everything from ketamine to pharmaceutical trials, and bounce from reggae to soul to drum and bass without warning. Somehow, “Asylum” is also warm, funny and the best album I’ve heard all year.
I’ve listened to Asylum sober. I’ve listened to it couch-locked. I’ve listened to it in the car, on a run, alone, with friends, with my partner. It has not missed once. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to want from a record.
So let me get the verdict out of the way before I explain myself. Ren and Chris Webby have made the best album I’ve heard all year, and one of the best collaborations I’ve heard in a long time. Two of the sharpest lyricists working, from two countries and two scenes that were not supposed to overlap, holed up in a house in the Connecticut woods and came out with fifteen songs that did not exist when they walked in.
I should say up front that I was already a fan of both, separately, and that I’ve been interviewing Webby since 2018. Ren, I found by accident. I was in a hotel room in Chicago with a friend, going down a rap rabbit hole, watching a Juice WRLD freestyle, and YouTube served me “Hi Ren” next. I have not stopped talking about it since. I made everybody I know watch it.
So when I heard these two had made a record together, I was going to like it. What I was not prepared for was this.
The origin is almost stupid. Ren left a comment on one of Webby’s videos. Webby’s girlfriend spotted it, told him she was a fan and that he should do something …
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Author: Javier Hasse / High Times
