Eleven tracks into Wiki’s new tape Cold Cuts, he asks, “Tell me how long Wiki been speakin’?” Over the controlled chaos of a Subjxct 5 beat—Elizabeth, New Jersey’s Sub produced the entire project—Wiki recounts the impressive length of his rap career. The original “Wikispeaks” came out a decade ago and “Wikispeaks 2K22” is a bombastic recap of how far the artist has come. Even before establishing himself firmly on 2015’s Lil Me, Wiki had been a fixture in the NYC art scene and driving force of the group RATKING, spitting bars in cyphers and bashing mics on his head.

Last year’s Half God was Wiki’s attempt at making the perfect New York rap album for the new decade. Cold Cuts is a looser effort, yet the pair have delivered the next great NYC rap tape. Wiki sounds refreshed bouncing around on beats from Sub, who himself is having a breakout year alongside his 2oo4 collective. The duo sound like they’re having a blast riffing together over production inspired by the early 2000s and Jersey club. Subjxct 5’s ear for ingenuity pushes Wiki into a more fluid space, his thumping flow becoming more nimble across the 18 songs.

Friends and fans of each other for years, Wik and Sub come together to make playful music with technical flair. “In the spirit of Lil Wayne,” as Wiki tells it. They tap the vein that wants brutish raps and flood it with inventive fun.

What’s the best deli sandwich when you’re hungover?

Wiki: Just a bacon, egg and cheese, on some hungover shit. No hot sauce, no ketchup, when you’re dying. It’s about survival.

Subjxct 5: I literally just had a bacon, egg and cheese walking over here.

I’m all about the cheesesteak.

Wiki: Cheesesteak is a good hangover thing. It’s something about it, you can eat it right away: steak, cheese, bread. It’s filling. That’s some Philly shit.

Favorite thing the other has done musically?

Wiki: I got put onto to Sub four years ago. I remember Tony Seltzer put me on first. The first shit was “Pick & Roll.” Had me fucked up. At that point, I didn’t realize—that’s just one sound of his. After meeting him and talking over the years, it’s all different things he can do. And he makes it sound fresh. I’m excited to hear what he keeps doing.

Subjxct 5: My freshman year of college—I only went for two semesters—my first semester, we had to do this PowerPoint with music in the back. I remember RATKING had dropped 700-Fill, and the song “Bethel,” I used to run that shit back every day, for real. I put that instrumental in my PowerPoint.

Wiki: The tape has been a long time coming. From the jump, we started making shit. Sub was DJing for me on tour, and we were working on shit on the road.

Subjxct 5: We started working on some of these songs right away. I remember “Butta Leather” was one of the first songs.

That’s nuts—I put a Lil Me song in a project in college.

Wiki: It’s educational rap.

How do you balance each other when you’re working?

Wiki: We’re hella good about that shit. Sub can be like, “Nah, I need you on this.” I have to trust him on that.

Subjxct 5: And we listen to a lot of the same rap. With Wiki, I think of it from a fan perspective because I was listening to his stuff and RATKING. I wanna use all that, plus what I’m listening to now, and crush it up a little bit.

Wiki: Also, you can hear we’re having fun with it. We’re experimenting with everything we can do. Sub is influenced by all types of things. We could be in a Bone Thugs stage, or a Three 6 phase. And we put that at the forefront with the samples we chose and we touch on a lot of little elements of hip-hop.

Subjxct 5: We both get hyped about rap. It’s always cool to make music with somebody who gets the history.

Wiki: If you listen all the way through, the flows and the sounds, and the collaborators—it’s a mix of all our people from over the years. We’ve all become this conglomerate, you know? It’s dynasty shit.

The music head influence is also huge.

Wiki: That’s what makes it good. We’re music heads and I like Sub because he brings that out of me. Sometimes, when you’re making music you forget to listen to your influences or discover new shit. Sub is such a student of the game, he puts me on.

Subjxct 5: In my shit, I like to take you through the history through the music. We both share an appreciation for music history, and we got all these hidden references.

Wiki: That! You’re hearing references in the music and in the bars, but not obvious.

Subjxct 5: Without being loud about it!

There’s been a lot of chatter on the “state of hip-hop” online these last few days. What do you guys think of that?

Subjxct 5: Rap is gonna change. Coming from—I’m younger, I understand new music—the name of the game is being fresh. On the tape, as much as we talk about old-school shit, there’s a lot of new sounds and inspirations.

Wiki: That was important. It’s about bridging that gap. Respecting the new sound and being influenced by that, it’s important to move forward. It’s what you said: hip-hop is forever. There’s so much shit out in the world right now. Hip-hop’s not suffering. Dig deeper.

Subjxct 5: That’s a rule in hip-hop. Just break away. I pay attention to a lot of shit, so I can reference old shit and the new wave. We gotta push this shit forward. With everything I do, since day one, it’s always been about moving forward, with a little dash of my love for the past.

Wiki: Subjxct can work with any type of artist. He is good at taking a sound and making it fresh. He’s doing Jersey club shit, like, “I been into this.”

Subjxct 5: I listen to Jersey club. I like dance music. I like the rap shit, too. Icewear Vezzo, Babyface Ray. Big metal fan.

Wiki: And he played fucking clarinet! He has a broad influence. Being able to be into all that shit, that makes Sub so good.

Photos by Jacob Consenstein and Alex Hoder.

Wiki & Subjxct 5 Made the Next Great NY Rap Tape