Last year’s who told you to think​?​?​!​!​?​!​?​!​?​! was a watershed release for milo, the 25-year-old rapper and producer who’s found himself pitched as the reluctant poster boy for an art-rap movement that might not particularly exist. It’s no mystery why he’s seen this way: Residing in Maine, milo, who releases much of his music under the name scallops hotel, favors cryptic lowercase song titles and stream-of-consciousness lyrics full of literary and art-world references. “I feel like Arthur Miller when The Crucible drop,” he gleefully brags on that album’s “Yet Another,” while on “Take Advantage of the Naysayer” he recalls hipping fellow-traveller Open Mike Eagle to the French sculptor Jean Dubuffet while on a trip to a museum. These high-brow bars are relayed over a backdrop of free-form-leaning production built on kooky loops and digital ticks, swaddled in the warming ambience of static.

At times, milo’s style has been more of an endearingly experimental idea than something that produces cogent albums—but with who told you to think​?​?​!​!​?​!​?​!​?​!, he found a way to back up his witticisms with weightier production that encourages repeat listens. His latest effort, sovereign nose of (y)our arrogant face, reinforces that forward movement. A compact 24-minute project that was snuck out on January 1st, it resonates as both milo’s most accessible work to date and a robust middle finger to the way his music has been misperceived.

Cutting right to the chase, milo spits hard and angry over an ominous piano loop on the opening track, “A Terror Way Before Falling.” “Cue yawning zeitgeist/Wack motherfuckers flounder for limelight,” he vents, before bigging up his label as only he can: “Ruby Yacht’s magnificence is bioluminescence.” He’s still going strong 10 tracks later on the album closer, “Sedans,” a dramatic outing co-produced by the Brooklyn-based beatsmith and engineer Steel Tipped Dove: “I wish I could give a fuck about a brush stroke,” milo says, pairing this barb with a warning to sucker MCs that works as a restatement of classic hip-hop ideals: “Know it’s no remorse ’cause rapping is a blood sport.”

This is the thing that’s often overlooked with milo: Many of his references might be more likely found nestling in the shelves of a university bookstore than on the racks of a streetwear pop-up shop, but he delivers them with an unimpeachable flow and a deep, palpable love for hip-hop tradition. Who else in 2018 is channelling their rap nerdery by referencing Boogiemonsters’ mid-’90s summer jam “Honeydips in Gotham,” as milo does on the woozy “A Method (JAWGEMS Pausing in the Hotel Lobby)”?

As if to address the way some of his lyrics might cause listeners to hit up Wikipedia before admiring the flow, on “Whereareewe” milo mentions Dee Dee Skyes, a character from the late-’70s Hanna-Barbera cartoon “Captain Cavemen.” The slow-tempo, smoldering song ends with a snippet of a conversation between the rapper and Steel Tipped Dove, who questions the reference to a decades-old Saturday morning deep cut. “I thought it was super-fun as a kid,” milo explains with a shrug. He knows that sometimes being a likable MC is mostly about saying something that sounds cool—and when it comes to saying cool shit, milo does it better than most.