Tuesday, February 3, 2015

KEVIN GATES WROTE THE AURAL EQUIVALENT OF A 15 YEAR-OLD GIRL'S TUMBLR


The booty eating was a non-issue trumped up by VladTV and the distinguished analphobe LORD JAMAR.  I can even get past the cousin fucking, although I pray the young lady is on some form(s) of birth control.

But KEVIN GATES has pushed me too far on this "Perfect Imperfection" schlock.  It's the kinda corny sentimental dreck hormonal Tumblr users quote in handwriting font over "evocative" images of moody nature scenes and young people having fun.   Yo, this shit belongs on a needlepoint throw pillow in an apartment full of IKEA furniture and some fuckin vases and mahogany bureaus from Pottery Barn.  They're the kind of lyrics someone with a heavy arsenal of bath bombs would have in a frame surrounded by scented candles.

Guess we know what the teardrop tats mean: homie is mad emo.  And I don't mind emo, but this is just bad art.  Z-RO went full emo on "Happy Feelingz," but he restrained himself from the kind of maudlin self-pity in which GATES indulges.  Both rappers get lachrymose, but where Z-RO approaches it with a degree of perspective ("Yeah I'm a grown man, but I still cry sometimes") and unaffected confessionalism ("Cause I'm a sponge soaking up pain, trying to come out the rain"), GATES blubbers some of the most laughably histrionic lyrics ever penned by a postpubescent ("Is it okay to cry when you're dying inside?").  When did I walk into a LINKIN PARK song?

I'm a perfect imperfection and I don't find interest in the radio

Is that really true?  Seems like he'd fuck with some NATASHA BEDINGFIELD or SAM SMITH.

Emotionally I'm a introvert, but it comes off as aggression
No one understand me and everybody can't be slow
It's refreshing to find someone who thinks like me so I can't be wrong

No one wants to read your journal, my dude.  Art is a kind of alchemy: you gotta transform the content with some detachment and artifice, otherwise it's just some whiny dude embarrassing everyone with his emotional outpourings.

If I wanted some I'm OK, You're OK bullshit I'd hang out in the self-help section at Barnes & Noble.  I don't wanna say there's no crying in rap music, but KEVIN GATES really comes close to ruining it for everyone.  You can thank him, sensitive rappers of the future.

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