They didn’t crawl out of the sewers, they detonated from them. Codefendants have never sounded interested in playing nice with scenes, algorithms, or gatekeepers. Built from the combined wreckage of punk, hip-hop, and underground rock, the trio—Sam King (Get Dead), Julio “Ceschi” Ramos, and Fat Mike—operate on a frequency they’ve dubbed Crime Wave: confrontational, cross-pollinated, and proudly unconcerned with genre borders.
That ethos comes into sharp focus on “Rivals,” the first single from their upcoming album LIFERS, due April 3. Dropping January 30, the track reunites Codefendants with West Coast hip-hop legend The D.O.C., marking their second collaboration after “Fast Ones” from the band’s 2023 debut THIS IS CRIMEWAVE. This time, though, the connection feels deeper.
DOC opens “Rivals” with a verse that cuts straight through the noise, his unmistakable cadence carrying decades of lived experience, adaptation, and survival. His presence isn’t symbolic; it’s foundational. As he puts it plainly: “Being a Codefendant is one of the best parts of making music today. They don’t give a shit what my voice sounds like as long as it’s on beat.” In a genre ecosystem obsessed with polish, that sentiment lands like a mission statement.
For Fat Mike, the collaboration grew organically out of conversation, specifically, stories about parallel underground worlds colliding.
“I was hanging with DOC and he was telling me stories of gang life in Compton,” Mike says. “I told him that there were punk gangs too. He didn’t believe me. Then I told him about FFF and LADS and Suicidals… then he wrote his verses to ‘Rivals.’ It’s pretty fucking awesome that the fuckin DOC and I got to work on another song together.”
That exchange sits at the heart of “Rivals.” Rather than framing punk and hip-hop as opposing cultures, the song treats them as overlapping survival strategies—born from similar conditions, aimed at similar enemies, and fueled by similar distrust of institutions. That shared DNA has always existed on the fringes, from early hardcore’s rhythmic borrowing to hip-hop’s embrace of punk’s confrontational spirit.
Ceschi makes that connection explicit:
“Our second track with the legendary DOC stems from conversations about how punk and hip-hop are overlapping counter-cultural movements that came out of a similar time period with similar ideals.” He adds that while DOC directly addresses those parallels in his verse, the band approaches it from another angle:
“Sam & I mostly talking shit about rappers & punk / tastemaker snobbery.” The frustration, he notes, is personal: “Since we started Codefendants we’ve been confronted by gatekeepers not understanding that we genuinely grew up in both of these worlds.”
Musically, “Rivals” leans into weight rather than speed. Fat Mike drew inspiration from slower, sludgier early-’80s punk—tracks that let groove, repetition, and tension do the heavy lifting. That choice gives the song a subtle reggae adjacency without leaning on surface tropes: a sense of space, a focus on rhythm, and a refusal to rush the message. It’s the kind of pacing that lets DOC’s verse breathe and gives the track its bruised, deliberate momentum.
The collaboration arrives alongside an official music video featuring DOC with the band, reinforcing that this isn’t a legacy cameo—it’s an active partnership. With LIFERS shaping up to be a defining statement for Codefendants in 2026, “Rivals” reads like a line drawn in the sand: against genre purity, against cultural silos, and against the idea that punk, hip-hop, or reggae-adjacent groove ever belonged to just one world.
In that sense, “Rivals” isn’t just a song—it’s a reminder. The most dangerous music has always come from the overlap.
