Grimm Peaks: An Interview With Darko The Super

The work of late director David Lynch has inspired plenty of creatives, in film, television, and otherwise. Yet aside from a few well-placed bars by cinephile emcees, Darko The Super might be one of the only ones to structure an album around Twin Peaks.

"The first Lynch movie I saw was Blue Velvet," the Philadelphia rapper-producer says of his formal introduction to the influential film auteur. "I fell into a YouTube type of rabbit hole in high school, and it was talking about Dennis Hopper's performance, specifically when he's huffing the nitrous and that whole wild scene in the apartment. So I rented that off when Blockbuster was sending DVDs to your house still."

Subsequently, Darko got to see the serialized Twin Peaks, and its twisty, uncompromising approach on the weekly mystery drama made it his favorite Lynchian output. "It was the greatest television experience I've ever had. It just really inspired so much."

That love for Lynch comes through strongly on Beware Of Bob, his new album for the U Don't Deserve This Beautiful Art label. With eclectic yet solid production courtesy of none other than MF Grimm, it marks a full circle moment for Darko, who'd previously handled the instrumentals and arrangements for the independent hip-hop icon's 2021 LP The Hunt for the Gingerbread Man 2: Get The Dough.

"He is such a master of concept albums," he says of Grimm, "going back to The Downfall of Ibliys, just telling his sort of life story in that way conceptually. I always admired that about him."

The two first linked just prior to the pandemic, around the time of Darko's 2019 album Card Tricks For Dogs, which in his truly idiosyncratic fashion featured both Mr. Muthafuckin' eXquire and MC Paul Barman. "I had gotten into pressing vinyl and I had an idea for a gingerbread-shaped record of The Hunt For The Gingerbread Man," he recalls. "He actually took me serious because I had released Serengeti albums on my [UDDTBA] label, and they go back."

Darko seized on the opportunity to share some beats with Grimm (aka Percy Carey), fortuitously prompting the discussion of a sequel to the 2007 original. He describes their work on the project as a truly collaborative effort, one enhanced by character art renditions from Harvey Cliff and skit assistance by Hot Talent Buffet. "Percy had written out these scripts," he says. "I had all these ideas of how to do things, and he would be like, I need something with murder cookies. There was a theatrical element to it."

Though he looks back on this experience working with Grimm quite positively, making Gingerbread Man 2 during the pandemic certainly wasn't without its stressors. Darko was dealing with a death in the family, and the sudden loss of Grimm's Monsta Island Czars cohort MF DOOM obviously didn't help matters. "It was a really terrible time," he says. "Unfortunately DOOM had passed right when we were getting ready to release it, so that was just tragic for me and obviously Percy. I'm really glad I met Percy and was able to create something bright out of the darkness."