Rhys Langston is the best kept secret’s best kept secret. But he surely can’t stay that way for long.

Born, raised, and based in Los Angeles, CA, he grew up in a multi-racial household of working actor parents who toiled without nepotism or fast tracked careerism. This instilled in him the realistic and humble possibility of a life in the arts. Demonstrating profound abilities in the visual arts and creative writing at an early age, he came to musical expression late in adolescence, just as he earned an academic scholarship to attend an elite east coast university. In a matter of years into young adulthood, his multivalent mastery in art, literature, and music became apparent and undeniable.

Since 2014 he has released six EPs and eight LPs, stretching beyond the limitations of the rap genre and the musical medium itself. Exploring topics like race and culture from an abstracted autobiographical lens, culture and technology with the erudition of an essayist, and bookish esoterism inside an aloof cool, his releases have earned wide acclaim.

Notable entries in his catalog include the self-produced Language Arts Unit— which arrived in 2020 with a 104 page book that dissected rap and race in a long form lyric essay. “Grapefruit Radio” arrived two years later in similar fashion— with an 88 page paperback that cohered his visual art and absurdist prose beside the full album lyrics. With these releases he earned kind nods from The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, Bandcamp, Spin, Afropunk. Stereogum, DJ Booth, and many others.

Wider musical range and idiosyncratic edge can be noted on other projects, like 2021’s live instrument, punk rock burst of invective Stalin Bollywood; 2019’s 10 minute visual EP The T.C. Wash Suite; and his production work on outsider artist Andrew Mbaruk’s 2023 Affect Theory and the Text-to-Speech Grandiloquence. His newest effort, the collaborative To Operate This System sees him working with electronic music chameleons Pioneer 11 to truly set his foot into a broader alternative space. Equal parts guitar music, sly electronica, expressionist rap, and earnest balladry, the 8 track album is the latest evidence of Rhys Langston’s constant commitment to reinvention without sacrificing quality or cohesiveness.

 

He remains the multi-instrumentalist poet laureate of his living room, with a higher vertical leap than your favorite rapper or conceptual artist.