Hometown Sounds

“If you hatin’ then you probably wasn’t fam anyway.” Flex Mathews has always seemed restless for creativity. Rappers often pop up on guest spots for hip-hop tracks, but Flex, true to his moniker, has lent his freestyling to Congo Sanchez, downtempo DJ Farid, funk & dub band See-I, trucker hatted troubador Justin Trawick and many more. DC often seems divided into cliques and scenes, but Flex transcends all boundaries. When we spot Flex in the crowd at a show, we know there’s a solid chance he’ll hop on stage and throw down rhymes without any rehearsal. His long-simmering debut artist album Hi I’m Flex Mathews just dropped, so now it’s time to watch the mission statement single “Never Change”, with classic hip-hop production and scratching from The Unown and an overflowing of hometown love from The Handsome Grandson.