Storytelling isn’t merely a vehicle for self-expression, it’s a mode of transportation. Consider Exotica, the new album from Houston iconoclast, Fat Tony, the latest brilliant entry in that fabled tradition. Each song is a rich and compact iteration of rap short fiction. While hip-hop supplies the foundation of the Third Ward native’s assault on genre, his futuristic soundclash encompasses soul, lecherous French chansons, new wave, and African pop and reggae. To make the Third Coast cypher complete, Bun B pops up on “What Wake You Up.” Bob Dylan once famously said that an artist should “always be in the state of becoming.” And in the case of Fat Tony, Exotica is the latest stage in an evolution that has included everything from a turn on the first A$AP Rocky mixtape to co-hosting a Viceland show, founding a DIY Houston culture magazine to subversively expanding the parameters of experimentally-minded rap.