Bits and pieces have been cropping over the last couple months, but today it went official: Heems, aka Das Racist honcho and Greedhead capo aka the homie Himanshu, dropped his solo debut, the Nehru Jackets mixtape.

The entire enterprise has an entirely crewed up vibe. 100% of production duties are handled by fellow QNS repper Mike Finito, and there are guest verses from across the spectrum of the Das Racist extended family, including Kool AD/Vic Vazquez, Lakutis, Danny Brown, Fat Tony, Big Baby Gandhi, Action Bronson and Despot.

There’s an updated East Coast sound to the entire project – samples figure heavily, but the boom bap is updated to a stomping, clapping shake. Nobody’s going to mistake this for a backwards-looking retread; Nehru Jackets has an entirely forward looking sound, and maintains it for 25 tracks, an incredibly rare feat in the era of blog rap and Mediafire.

Also rad: Heems released the tape in partnership with Seva NY, a community organization in Queens that builds leadership in under-resourced communities, throwing the release party at a Seva event, and putting Seva youth onto the album itself. It’s not often enough that folks in make the leap from cultural tastemaker into a very very grassroots organization. It’s definitely a good look for Hima, in my opinion, and just one more good reason to get Nehru Jackets into your rotation.

Download Nehru Jackets here, and listen to a couple songs below, in modern “You Tube O Vision”.

More below the jump.

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