Short Fuze is an emcee from Chicago who has been working with Uncommon Nasa since 2010. They already had a few projects under their belts before they officially became Guillotine Crowns in 2020 with the release of their album, The First Stand. They released their latest album, Hills To Die On, just this past April. Now Short Fuze comes back with a true solo album, The Painkiller Boutique.

It’s not often that when an artist has been around as long as Short Fuze has, with all these different projects under his belt, can come out with an album like The Painkiller Boutique and make you feel like you’re being introduced to them for the first time. That’s because while Short Fuze long ago established himself as a dope emcee, he’s never looked inward on a project and just put himself front and center in this way before. At least not on this scale. For the album, he’s working with some familiar producers, such as Messiah Musik, Dr. Khil, Uncommon Nasa and Bloodmoney Perez. Together, they help create this dark and solemn soundscape, with midtempo underground beats that give Short Fuze a lot of space to just step to the mic and tell his stories. From the opening track, “Drowning in My Own Skin,” where Fuze really opens up about how even just his physical appearance and his racial identity and being aware of how people perceived him as a kid affected him on a deeper level than he realized at the time, you know you’re in for a different kind of album. This is a raw listening experience, and a lot of trauma and inner demons are going to be explored, whether it be the shitty male role models in Fuze’s house growing up, or just dealing with depression while trying to create a better world for his kid. As a result, this is an album that you really need to sit with and let everything sink and give it space to breath. If you can do that, it’s more than worth taking the time. And even though this is a deeply personal album, Fuze brings in a few guests to turn the album into group therapy and let you know that you’re not alone in this world, with verses from Uncommon Nasa, Defcee and Collasoul Structure from Jyroscope. Each one digs deep to match the level of personal confession that Fuze is bringing to the table, making it a really special listening experience from start to finish.

The idea of music as therapy isn’t new, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t special when an artist like Short Fuze drops an album like The Painkiller Boutique. Short Fuze finally got himself in the right place to confront a lot of different things in his life through hip hop, and we are all richer for it.

Guillotine Crowns - Hills to Die On 

Written by Chi Chi Thalken on April 29, 2022 

New York emcee/producer Uncommon Nasa and Chicago emcee Short Fuze have been friends and collaborators going back over ten years, but in 2020 they made their official debut as the duo Guillotine Crowns when they dropped their debut album, The First Stand. Two years later, and they are back to solidify their status with their sophomore album, Hills to Die On. 

Much like the first album, Hills to Die On is completely produced by Uncommon Nasa, with the exception of one track that is coproduced by Digdug. As is to be expected, the album hits you with some intense beats with dense layering drawing on Nasa’s love of vintage prog samples, flipping them and transposing them into dark midtempo tracks that set the mood and the energy level for Short Fuze and Nasa on the mic. On a sonic level, Fuze and Nasa make for a good pairing, with their contrasting styles on the mic, pairing Nasa’s low, booming voice and deliberate pacing and Fuze’s mid-range voice and smoother flow to create a nice balance across the album. Once you get into the meat of the album, you start to see why a group called Guillotine Crowns might be appropriate to speak to the times we are living in. Throughout the course of the album, Nasa and Fuze are speaking directly to you as a listener about the dark times we’ve been living through, whether it be issues of race, class, art, war, or a fucking global pandemic. These last few years have been especially rough, but Fuze and Nasa are here to work their way through some difficult conversations, challenge themselves and their listeners, and, oh yeah, make some dope hip hop along the way. They aren’t just doing by themselves either, with Jyroscope, Duke01, Tracy Jones, and Sketch 185 all dropping dope verses, but once again it’s Gajah (RIP) who shows up on “Horseman Armor” with verbal gymnastics that will make you do a double take and makes you shake your head afterward. 

Hills to Die On is a great sophomore album from a fairly new duo of veteran artist who know how to rock it and drop a dope album. They don’t take anything for granted, they speak to the moment, and they put a lot of themselves into the project. 

Title:Guillotine Crowns - Hills to Die On 

Label:Uncommon Records 

Year:2022 

Rating:8/10

Written by Chi Chi Thalken on July 30, 2020 

Chicago artist Short Fuze and New York artist Uncommon Nasa have been collaborating off and on for about ten years, but now the’ve decided to officially become a duo, going by the name Guillotine Crowns. Before they release their first full-length album of original material, they present this compilation of their collabs over the years, The First Stand. 

The first thing that hit me in listening to this compilation is that it’s about time that these two officially record as a duo, because this doesn’t feel like a comp – it feels like an album. And that’s because these two are so much on the same page musically, it just makes sense. They have similar deliberate flows on the mic, with a propensity for abstract imagery, and they both sound great on Uncommon Nasa’s left field proggy psychedelic beats. Over the course of this release, we also get some guest appearances from some familiar faces, such as Shortrock, Taiyamo Denku, Augury, Cirrus Minor, Last Sons, and Barrie McClain. My particular favorite is Barrie McClain’s soaring vocals on the majestic “Champions,” which will just get you pumped to do whatever it is you have to do. That’s the beauty of a compilation like this – there’s a good chance you either missed or maybe forgot about at least one of these songs over the years, and now you have a chance to go back and play catch up and uncover a gem or two. Any way you slice it, you’ve got a solid collection of underground hip hop from two artists that really feed off of each other’s energy very well. 

It will be a little bit longer before we get their official first full-length album, so The First Stand makes for a nice setup before it comes. As it reveals, Uncommon Nasa and Short Fuze have been a duo this whole time. 

Title:Guillotine Crowns - The First Stand 

Label:Uncommon Records 

Year:2020 

Rating:8/10

Original Link: Scratched Vinyl Review by Chi Chi

Emcee Short Fuze and producer/emcee Uncommon Nasa have been frequent collaborators over the years. If you’re not already familiar with their music, all you have to do is listen to their third full length together, Autonomy Music, and you’ll immediately hear how well they complement each other. 

There are a lot of things to like about Autonomy Music. If you’re familiar with Uncommon Nasa’s production, this is more of what he does best – some dense, prog-inspired beats that balance the weirdness of the underground hip hop of the late ‘90s and early ‘00s in New York, alongside the gritty-yet-pop-friendly production of New York groups of the early ‘90s like Wu Tang and Mobb Deep. Lyrically, Short Fuze finds a similar balancing act, bringing in some more abstract philosophical discussion alongside concrete personal narratives and pop-culture references. What really elevates the album, though, is the back and forth between the two artists. There are a few moments spread out over the course of the album where Uncommon Nasa places some audio clips before songs, and while in general I advise artists to do this sparingly and to try to keep things short as to not kill momentum, Nasa has a knack for finding some really compelling and thought-provoking clips that get you thinking, only to have the music kick in and Short Fuze piggybacks off of some of the ideas presented with his rhymes. Add in some guest verses from Nasa and Philly emcee Curly Castro, and we have one incredibly solid indie hip hop album. It’s weird without being alienating, and it’s fun while still being challenging and not afraid to embrace its oddness. 

If you like your hip hop gritty and intellectual, but still having a pop sensibility and some humor, Autonomy Music is for you. Short Fuze and Uncommon Nasa really work well with each other, and the push and pull here has resulted in some really great hip hop. 

Title: Short Fuze & Uncommon Nasa - Autonomy Music 
Label: Uncommon Records 
Year: 2016 
Rating: 8/10