Das Racist Break Up

MC Heems (aka Himanshu Suri) revealed the news over the weekend at the One Festival in Munich, Germany. A Nov. 30 post on Heems’ tumblr noted that his Dec. 1 solo set was originally scheduled as a Das Racist gig. 

On stage Heems told the crowd that he was going to play a couple of Das Racist songs, “but Das Racist are breaking up,” according to One Festival’s website.

The timing of the announcement was a surprise to the other members of the Brooklyn-based alternative hip hop group – MC Kool A.D. (aka Victor Vazquez) and hype man Dapwell (aka Ashok Kondabolu).

Kool A.D. tweeted Sunday that the group had broken up months ago.

“for the record i quit das racist 2 months ago and was asked by our manager not to announce it yet. apparently @himanshu wanted to do it tho.”

A fan replied to both of the MCs on Twitter, asking “why you do that tho?” and Kool A.D. responded “personal reasons.”

Dapwell hasn’t updated his Twitter page about the breakup, but he did discuss the matter with Spin.

“I was bummed when we actually broke up, when it was done, mostly because it was a way to make money really easily,” Kondabolu told the music magazine. “Now, I probably won’t be able to make money that easily ever again. But we had a plan to break up around May. We had just signed this record deal and we were going to put out one proper album and then go on a farewell tour, release a proper breaking up statement that could have been really funny, maybe a weird, stupid video. Now, all of that has gone to shit.”

Das Racist put out two mixtapes in 2010 – Shut Up, Dude and Sit Down, Man – and its first commercially released album, Relax, in 2011.

Heems, who founded independent label Greedhead Music in 2008, put out two solo mix tapes in 2012. He has upcoming appearances in China and India.

Kool A.D. also put out two solo mix tapes this year.