CRASHprez

CRASHprez is the rap project of Michael Penn II: the Fort Washington-raised, Chicago-based artist and writer. With hip-hop as the backbone, CRASHprez oscillates between the cathartic and comedic, parsing through the wreckage of his life, this world, and the deadlock between them. This is music of rage and yearning, offering a Black queer man’s transmissions from a bizarre existence. These conditions facilitate a rap music concerned with chronicling the burning world through questions of power, desire, agency, and authenticity. Each song can be a closed fist, a fleeting thought, a pretty memory or sinister element. No matter where he may land, CRASHprez remains dedicated to taking “it” “there” at all costs, lending his light to spill what ails and smile in the wild.  In a decade-plus career, CRASHprez has shared stages with artists such as JPEGMAFIA, Danny Brown, Denzel Curry, Vince Staples, Armand Hammer, Mick Jenkins, and Slow Pulp among many others. CRASHprez is 1/3 of the group defprez, whose 2023 album It's Always A Time Like This (out on Closed Sessions) received widespread acclaim in Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, i-D, The Ebro Show, Shade45, and HipHopDX among other outlets.