While y'all criticizin my name, I'm on a camel in Dubai
Boosie been on his Diary shit since freedom rang (God bless tha dead n America, ya feel?). You imagine ya mans traipsing through a graveyard in the rain, holding a black umbrella high as he gets mad introspective wit it, contemplating love and loss, demons within, the sum total of pain in this world. This is great stuff and I love it to def, but it also signals a conscious shift toward Serious Artistry, the same kinda deliberate legacy-making that motivates Kendrick and Jay's misguided pandering to the Rolling Stone set. Fortunately, Boosie don't give a shit about making next month's Fricke's Picks, but don't get it twisted: he makin album-oriented music for southern rap classicists. Somewhere during his incarceration, Boosie went from one of the more divisive voices in rap to a paragon of old rules integrity, a role solidified on the near-perfect Life After Deathrow. Consider the packaging alone for Touchdown 2 Cause Hell and Superbad. The former puts him in the pantheon of brooding artists, too plagued by life's ills to wear a shirt, along with Pac and X; the latter is a goofy rapper showing off an absurd chain and a pinky ring.
The concept of a radio hit feels dated, but there are at least four demographics who still listen to the radio, covering a wider swath than you would think: construction workers, poor people, normal people, commuters stuck in traffic. I'm not sure if "All I Know" will be the single for Touchdown 2 Cause Hell, but it seems to be doing well on the Internet. While it would be a welcome challenge to Drake's terrifying Clear Channel monopoly, "All I Know" is proof positive of Boosie's assimilation into the conventional rap world: Kane Beatz at the helm, R&B cooing on the chorus. "Zoom" was like a transmission from an alternate reality when it came out, a B-movie mutant-insect screeching over a symphony of crickets. I didn't like it at first, but Boosie had my full attention after that. For all intents and purposes, the raunchy regional identity and tossed-off levity of earlier Boosie are gone, replaced by a determination to etch his name up there with the greats. I am glad he exists. No one who has his level of ambition is making better music. Still, sometimes an artist is most dynamic in the ugly act of becoming.
TOUCHDOWN 2 CAUSE HELL DROPS MAY 26, GO COP THAT SHIT YA FEEL! SUPPORT REAL HIP-HOP, NONE OF THESE FETID WOPS OR RICH THA HOMIE KWONY MAY CASHOUTS!
I'm mainly pissed the song from this studio session hasn't made the track list to Touchdown 2 Cause Hell.
ReplyDeleteIs there an mp3 of that floating around at least?
ReplyDeleteNot yet, no. That's why I'm so pissed.
DeletePlus, Ross on the album but no Foxx? Oh the humanity.
On the bright side, at least Lil' Trill isn't on there.
I was really ready to disagree with you until i listened to "All I Know", now I'm not so sure. You're right, there's some definite reaching going on with that one, but I still feel that a majority of the music Boosie has put out post-prison has shown artistic progress. I think it would be a little unrealistic to expect levity from someone who's been though what Boosie has been through, and I think he's doing the healthiest thing an aging rapper can do. The other options are to abandon your own style in favor of some generic youthful next-generation sound (Jay-Z), stay a kid forever talking about the same shit you always have (Juicy J), or disappear. This makes me think of the time when Noz said "I have no time or respect for any rapper over the age of 30 who does not kick knowledge." If Boosie keeps going in the direction of "All I Know" though, then you're right, we're in trouble. Time and "Touchdown 2 Cause Hell" will tell.
ReplyDeleteGood points. I'm actually really pleased the way Boosie has grown as an artist. Life After Deathrow was my favorite thing from last year, but I don't want the weightiness of his newer material allow latecomers (i.e. writers/critics who cover rap casually) to dismiss the older stuff as juvenilia. Especially with rap, shit seems to get a free pass just for having a "message" or something corny like that. We got Bibles for that.
ReplyDeleteYou're right tho, an artist gotta progress. It probably is unrealistic to expect levity, altho one of the things I liked about older Boosie was how he mixed it up. Still, beating a murder rap hasn't stopped him from continuing to rap about murder.
Really my argument is more about appreciating how an artist got to where they are. The mainstream press fucks this up all the time. There was an article in Time back when Wayne was getting attention for Drought 3 that dismissed the Hot Boys as "laughably bad" or something like that, and it's like, "You don't know what you're talking about and you're disseminating your uninformed shit in a widely read forum."
And Noz is so wrong with that statement, not to mention he contradicts himself. Too Short has been on the front page of Cocaine Blunts forever.
Yes your core point here is 100% correct. Most people are uncomfortable with black people boldly expressing themselves unless they're preaching or apologizing (which is why everybody loves the new Kendrick), and most interesting expression does not fall into those two categories. And I don't fully agree with that Noz statement either (although it leans in a direction i do agree with), I think what we need to watch out for is critiquing Boosie for kicking knowledge honestly vs kicking knowledge to pander to those who will then turn around and dismiss his life's work up to that point. Much of his recent music falls into the first category, but the track you posted almost definitely falls into the second, and you're right to call him out for it.
Deleteshort's been kickin knowledge before 30 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fw0uz88E2gI
ReplyDeleteFurr enough. But at least for me, the Too Short I love is not the one spitting knowledge.
ReplyDelete