Gods Wisdom
Reuven Ender-Arnold, known professionally as Gods Wisdom, is an American musician, singer-songwriter and producer based in Massachusetts. He was affiliated with the New England-based independent record label and collective known as Dark World founded by rapper DJ Lucas.
Early life
Reuven Ender-Arnold was born in 1994 in Northampton, Massachusetts.Career
Arnold began his career as a drummer for a metal band. Around that time, his friend Lucas Kendall who began the "punk label" Dark World, began to shift his sound towards rap music. The pair began recording rap-influenced music as DJ Lucas and Gods Wisdom respectively, with Lucas producing a lot of Arnold's early material. On November 10, 2015, Arnold and Lucas released the collaborative album Gods Lucas, which was accompanied by a music video for the opening track "Unprepared".In 2016, Pitchfork reviewed his fourth studio album Self Restraint. The album was described as "an artifact from 2011 or 2012" and compared to witch house. Arnold collaborated with Cooper B. Handy on the EP On Thin Ice, which was made on GarageBand and self-described by the pair as "Elliott Smith meets dub". On the song "Beep, Beep", Dark World co-founder Sen Morimoto performs on saxophone.
Arnold later stopped associating with the Dark World label and collective.
In 2022, Arnold collaborated with Cooper B. Handy once more on their debut collaborative album February Motel. The album featured production credits by Encii, rapper Hi-C and Surf Gang founder Evilgiane.
Legacy
In 2015, Kim Gordon of Sonic Youth featured Gods Wisdom on a Top-10 list of 2015 for the December issue of Artforum stating, "This white kid rapping and rolling around naked under a big fluffy comforter in the music video for 'Christian Dior' is one of the most disturbing things I've ever seen. I think it's the future, beyond white versus black pop girl squads! I will always think of the male gaze. Thank you, Julia Kristeva." That same year, rapper Despot referred to Gods Wisdom as "the best rapper now".In 2016, Rihanna was photographed wearing a pink shirt with a Gods Wisdom patch sewn on it. The collaboration occurred due to an LA designer that DJ Lucas had collaborated with on merchandise.
New York magazine The Fader stated "God's Wisdom has a preternatural capacity for making genuinely weird music. Intentionally or not, everything he touches with his deep, detuned voice or his perpetually spacey production is immediately riddled with leering, uncanny overtones." Arnold has been referred to as "post-SALEM, pre-Sematary".