In May I stopped through the unsuspecting hip-hop town of Des Moines, Iowa on my way to the SoundSet Festival in Minneapolis. On a rainy day in DSM I met up with the Maxilla Blue trio Asphate Woodhavet, Aeon Grey, and DJ TouchNice. These standout reps of their scene were gracious enough to let me roll back to their apartment to duck the precipitation, and then I chopped it up with the emcee/producer/DJ team. That footage will see the light of day soon, but more importantly right now, as I parted ways with MB they promised some dope new content in the future. The first of those offerings is this intricate visual narrative for “Lego Blocks” off the Maxilla Blue LP released last year. Asphate provides all the dope bars and stars as the enigmatic, villain-like chess player character, while Aeon’s tight production rides next to subtle desk scratches from Touch through out. Easily one of the standout cuts from the album, this visual effort only elevates the Iowan hip-hop collective’s status as an underrated Midwest entity. Dig deeper and get learned with this one.