Friday, October 27, 2017

BEST RAP WRITING OF 2014: THE BLATLANTA PAPERS

 Middle school era Thugger and DC Young Fly

Follow me as I turn this blog into a gossip rag. Yung Barvey Kingpin giving you the raw and real messageboard rumors. Cause if I don't muckrake, who will?

Members of the Coli fraternal order are claiming that the now dormant account Blatlanta is Ralo or "somebody close to him within that FAMERICA camp." I won't attribute words to a source without legitimate proof, but whoever it was submits a dossier of intriguing insider info; in particular, the 2014 thread "Young Thug nikka is a straight up batty bwoy," in which he questions the notion that Young Thug's gender subversion is anything more than a cynical cash grab.

Even if true, does contrivance change anything in a world where presentation is reality? Lou and Bowie may or may not have rode dick for counterculture points, but they were still getting gay in public at a time when that was taboo. Put a read on this:

Dude trollin hard as fukk and he's always been a nikka who did shyt just for attention since High School he's just gettin more extreme with it nowadays cause he's doing it on a larger scale. nikkas voted him best dressed in high school as a joke...I went to high school with him for a few years before he transferred after getting jumped and beat with a bat(hence those facial scars and why his teeth used to be fukked up) in like 9th or the beginning of 10th grade. Everybody used to call him "Lil Jeff"..

He one of them ugly ass funny nikkas that always did crazy or odd shyt to get attention from hoes. He started QB in high school and was a basketball star, his dad is a local legend for athletics and coaches bball at the high school. He aint really start going crazy til he started taking rap real serious, dude had a scholarship to college for athletics and fukked it all up.


He a real hood nikka tho, not a drug dealer but more of a user that would rob dealers or set em up and such. He got hella p*ssy on the block too and his name whole weight on the southside and westside of ATL heavy, nikka got like 6 kids around the city and tons of baby mamas and he only 23.

 

Dude tied up in so much bullshyt between signing 360 contracts and owed street debts that he not really eating off his career. Birdman taking 15% of everything himself and I know the 300 ENT 360 deal he signed prolly taking at least another 15-30%....

He been rapping since like 2010 and wasnt really seeing any success from it outside of the hood of ATL so this gay shyt just a way for him to get attention on a larger scale, I know him and his manager, and his sisters and all the nikkas he used to be on the block with and its obviously a gimmick. His manager told me they were looking for a way to garner attention for him to take to the next level last september right after he invested 10K to fix his teeth.

The nikkas from his block say he "gay for pay" now lol....


Once he got his teeth fixed thats when the gimmicks started just watch the vids below he used to be crazy and outgoing, now the nikka wanna act shy and barely talk at all in an interview, Rich homie gotta talk for him lol. Dude been drugged up, it's just that he softened himself up to get mainstream attention...a suspect "gay" rapper named Young Thug is perfect for 2014.


That last sentence >>>> every Young Thug thinkpiece. Blatlanta then claims, "Peewee Longway's whole career is based off being Thug's lean, weed and molly man. Like Thug had been copping from him for years and then once Peewee started rapping Thug basically put him on in exchange for drugs to use lol..."


What's the basis for the belief that this is Ralo? A signature now gone, a still from an early Ralo video as an avatar, the insider info and photos - in a word, only circumstantial evidence. In any event, his assertions give new insight into Thugger's media savvy. Whether it was a contrived stunt or a heartfelt rejection of binary gender roles, his antics kept homophobes and -philes talking. Andre 3000 might have done it first, but that was long before the thinkpiece bubble descended on us. Thugger knew what critics and open-minded fans wanted to see. The rest is thinkpiece history.

Wednesday, September 20, 2017

BALLGREEZY FAN PAGE



Who let these new kids in? I see them with their Thrasher shirts, prescription pills, and prostate-stimulating repetition. What happened to the days when Trick Daddy and Gunplay tried minting Florida rap with a lyricist's imprimatur? SoundCloud rap is just dexontextualized postmodern appropriation, which proves we've reached the end of culture. Right? Yes. No.

Cry if you want, or blame someone. Not Rick Ross - he exists in a geohistorical void of his own making. It's Spaceghostpurrp. Not just the father of all these reprobates, he is their direct link to the old school ("I'd bring Markese with me to the studio," Morrison says. "He'd just sit and watch Disco Rick work the engineering board. It definitely got Markese's attention."). Now we have a traceable lineage, now we have cause and effect, and we can sleep easily at night knowing that the problematic rock bricolage of a Xxxxtentacion isn't that far away from "Fuck Around The Clock" or "Do Wah Diddy", and Little Pump and Smoke PUrple circle around the same blown-out absurdist drain as "Let's Get Muthafuckin' Stupified" and "Smurf Rock."

Raider Klan inaugurated a distinct break from the half-thizzy club anthems of yesteryear (despite Denzel Curry honoring Bizzle on "Envy Me"). Whether this was a deliberate aesthetic choice, or an effect of generation gaps, urban sprawl, personal enmities, or insider/outsider industry politics, it marks a splintering - a rupture. Existing parallel to Raider Klan and their children, traditionalists like Ice Berg, Lil Dred, and Mike Smiff continue producing content steeped in familiar conventions. Like Kodak Black, who combines new-gen meme literacy with older rap styles, Ballgreezy stands between movements but remains outside them, continuing in a post-jook mode while softening its Dionysian edges with grown-man world-weariness. At times he resembles one of the mournful songmen of today; this might be the case, and yet Greezy was crooning before Wayne and Kanye broke down the R&B doors and liberated moping for the kids of today.

Who will unite the Florida factions? Who will be the self-conscious Jay-Z or RZA attempting to bridge the gap of false binaries, long after anyone cares? I see a fat man in the distance. Who is he? He smells of wings. It's Rick Ross, the man without a country. He holds the key - interlocking Wingstop gift cards. They represent money, fame, industry clout, and $50 worth of Wingstop product at any Wingstop location. As of this writing, he is the key who unites the various schools.

Thursday, September 14, 2017

NOW DENVER/OKC/DALY CITY ARE JUS LYKE COMPTON



Denver: home of Don Cheadle, Chauncey Billups, Philip Bailey, the guy who molested Neal Cassady, and my mom dukes. Ya mans spent part of his youth walkin up and down Colfax, sidestepping the methheads and shovin my hands in wat. Shout out to Paul's Liquors and the girl from Montbello who broke my heart.

So it always hit close to home when Quik related a less than positive Denver experience in "Jus Lyke Compton," his Odyssey/"On The Road Again" travelogue. If any of you mumblin Soundcloud whippersnaps need a refresher, Westword and Quik-via-Drake can help you out with that. But the postmodern critique is all about questioning metanarratives - infinite sides and oblique angles to every story, and Quik's fame and clout means his is privileged over all others.

Enter the internet with a new element of hip-hop: unsubstantiated forum rumors. TomTom, a Denver-based user on streetgangs.com, thinks DJ Quik is "SOFTER THAN WET TISSUE!!" Peep game.

OK FOLKS MUCH PROPS 2 THE RU'S BUT QUIK IS A HOE....PEEP GAME...THIS NIGGA CAME OUT HERE BACK IN LIKE 89/90, AND DID A CONCERT RIGHT...WELL HIM AND BOUGHT 10 OF HIS TREE TOP HOMEYS GOT 2 TAGGING NIGGAS UP AND WAVING THEY FLAME FLAGS, AND THANGS RIGHT...WELL THE EASTSIDE CRIPZ, FROM OUT HERE JUST RUSHED THE STAGE AND WOOPED ALL THEM NIGGAS...QUIK VACATED THE PREMISE LEAVING HIS HOMEYS ON STAGE 2 GET RODE ON...SECURITY WASN'T EVEN DEEP ENUFF 2 STOP THEM EITHER..IT WAS LIKE 50 OF THEM CRIPS...HOW DO I KNOW...MY RELATIVES WERE THERE AND TOLD ME EVERYTHING....AFTER THAT THE CONCERT THERE WAS A HUGE GANG FIGHT AND ONE OF MY OLDEST SISTA'S POTNAS GOT KILT....POINT MADE...QUIK AINT BEEN BACK 2 THE 405 SINCE....BOUT 2 YRS LATER HE WENT OUT 2 DENVER AND GOT WOOPED BY SOME DENVER RAYMONDS...THAT'S WHY HE PUT DENVER'S NAME IN THAT "JUS LIKE COMPTON" SONG.....ANY OF U CPT NIGGAS NO HIM THEM THEN ASK HIM WHY HE HASN'T BEEN BACK...LOL.....ASK HIM BOUT DENVER 2 CAUZE I HEARD THAT WAS WORST.....HE DOESN'T GIVE A GOOD SHOWING FOR TREE TOPS....BUT THAT'S JUST MY OPINION....

After user 2%Soda says that Quik got his ass whooped in Daly City, TomTom adds Oklahoma City to the list. The electronic revolution: giving voice to the voiceless. Back in the day you needed a few 16s to set the record straight on who whooped whose ass.

Eleven years after these 2004 posts, Quik returned to Denver with Warren G in tow. As for TomTom? Wherever he is, I hope he's bangin' and postin' and spreading gossip like a punk-ass bitch.

Monday, July 24, 2017

all this and baltimore


One love to the Baltimore carpetbaggers sauced out in Old Bay drapery. One love to the Boh sippers and the dope feens leanin' on St. Paul.

Cash Money tributes are more played out than hashtag punchlines and Comme des Fuckdown longsleeves. But in that deluge of superficial aesthetic mining and cynical nostaljack bait, few attempted to make something that actually sounded like vintage Cash Money. T.S.O. Tadoe, who made some noise in 2015 w/ "YSN," runs with Cash Moneys public-housing thematics over a bed of that anime-fight-scene woosh Mannie often used (e.g. "Trigga Play"); Noz could probably tell you what synth he used if you study at the Red Bull Music Academy.

VERDICT: Better than Tyga's "Cash Money." Not as good as "Whores In This House."

As a teenage Noz stan, I co-opted his single-minded hatred of Birdman. Noz regarded Birdman as the Big Tymers' fatal flaw, kind of like how El-P's rapping, beats, concepts, beard, red hair, wardrobe choices, and existence are the fatal flaw of RTJ. He finally understood what Birdman brought to the table after a magical weekend listening to Poncho Sanchez with Lil' B, but he never explained what caused the sudden about-face. Perhaps it was a mix of Brandon's charisma and the realization that Birdman's sneer and lavish no-nonsense raps enabled Mannie's tomfoolery. Ya boy been listening to a bit of Big Money Heavyweight 'cause it's one of two Big Tymers albums on Spotify, and it dawned on me that Mannie and Baby don't quite get their due in the annals of rap duos. Big Tymers >>> Nice & Smooth >>> Group Home >>> Black Star.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

sensitive thugs need hugs, but don't we all?


Ayo! Last I heard from Yee, he was mobbin w/ Yid on "Keep It On Me." Yeah they sounded like a Sino-Borscht Belt vaudeville act, but the way they brought that spirit-of-'01 Orientalist approach to Bay street-rap had this blogga C-walkin in his honeycomb AIs.

Yee is back with a sensitive gangsta ballad that's somewhere between YFN Lucci (a/k/a New Akon) and Yhung TO. For all the ink spilled about the nihilism of gangsta rap, the Pacs and 'Faces of da world balanced it with serious moral engagement. Actually, dumb man, it was the most moral music being made in the '90s, especially when you consider all the indie rock bands writing songs about nothing. What damaged the youth more: irony or deeeeeez nuuuuts? Clearly the Soundcloud and mumble-rap gang is following in the footsteps of the morally vacuous likes of Stephen Malkmus, 'cause they ain't rapping about nothing. It's just bitch this and Molly that, repeated to the point that they lose their meaning. Based God, Based God, what have ye done?

Soon we'll have a whole generation gettin head in the whip and poppin Xans but feeling nothing. That's fine wit me 'cause I don't believe in anything either, but I'm glad we have moral sages like Lil Yee and other street-rap believers keepin the moral focus in the age of entropy. Listening to street-rap is a moral imperative.

Saturday, July 1, 2017

SHE JUST WANNA RIDE WITH AN EMBEDDED VIDEO DUMPER


Wassup y'all? Ya droog been knee deep in this Milwaukee shit, and I ain't talkin Schlitz (tho I have been abusing alcohol). Finna cop me a self-driving car and ride up on some cross-country shit, find me a Native American potna and take moody photos of abandoned factories. You know, really discover the meaning of America, and through that...myself. To that, I can only say CHUUUCH.


LIL CHICKEN - NO GREASE
One of the best songs I've encountered in this Milwaukee crop. Is it gimmicky to call yourself Lil Chicken, title your song "No Grease," and feature interstitial footage of Church's, Popeye's, and KFC in the video? Perhaps. But gimmickry, like hand motions and a passion for fashion, is an unspoken element of hip-hop.



YPN DOUGIE - DUMPER (FT. YPN KES & LIL CHICKEN)
YPN Dougie says it ain't a dance song - it's a dump song. But we in the non-binary age. Why can't it be both? Context tells me a dumper is a hustler, but a fat man talking about dumping suggests only one thing. Points to the rhythmically challenged YPN Kes for a great quotable ("Hop in this bitch, you gettin' dumped on / We don't listen to radio, just ringtones") followed by a problematic imperative to a female companion: "Bitch ridin talkinbout she gotta piss / Bitch you knew the rules before you hopped in this bitch / No drive-thrus / No bathrooms / No piss stops / And no issues!" Riding passenger ain't been this cold since Santana made his ladyfriend sit in the car without touching anything.

Tuesday, June 20, 2017

SCHLEMIEL, SCHLIMAZEL: SOME MILWAUKEE RAP


Milwaukee has a viable rap scene. I hear a lot of Chicago, some Bay Area by way of Detroit, and a dash of inescapable Atlanta. Question: Has the internet colonized the regional sound, or is it the sole reason we get to hear music that would have been damned to the random-rap afterlife in another era?

In b4 a reputable publication's MILWAUKEE IS THE NEXT RAP SEATTLE thinkpiece/link-dump gets passed around for a week by middle-class rap enthusiasts, who, when the thrill of discovery fades, dispatch its artists into the post-buzz hospice where Tate Kobang and G-Side mumble ciphers into the void. Chuuuuuch.

Lil

Lil Tre - Pain

The one that led me down the rabbit hole. Nothing fancy, just some laid-back reality rap for the goth bitch in your soul.


MT ft. Lil Chicken, YBN Kenny & The Mari Boyz- All Stars
 
Lil Durk making an ATL dance song with a couple guys rapping in the flat Bay Area accent? A light-hearted 3 Problems? SOBxRBE for beer brewers? Whatever the case, the fly athletic gear and sports theme bring ya mans back to earlier days. However, that's not to say I don't think it's totally PUNK when Young Thug wears a stately evening gown on some Audrey Hepburn shit. I'm more tolerant than you.


Mari Boyz - Jugging [sic]

Bleak, singsong street-rap is perhaps the biggest style breakthrough of the late-'00s/early-'10s. Who is the progenitor? Methinks Durk should get some of Keef's reevaluatory shine.

Wednesday, June 14, 2017

BELIALZ REJECTZ


Honeycomb Hideout, nigga you be pickin em out
After I take my dick out, then we kickin em out
Stickin the flow, shrimp in my mouth
I won't pass, Ima show you what this pimpin about

Overlooked 2016 Jam now resurfacing on a collection of Ampichino duets. Like most things 'Chino, this is unpretentious roll-up-ya-sleeves rap executed with the professionalism of a plumber who'll unclog ya toilet, hand you a reasonable bill, and sell you a li'l blow while he's at it. A chipmunk soul sample and the back-and-forth patter of two MCs trading greezy quotables on bitches: word to Phil Oakey, these are the things RAP MUSIC HSYTERIA! dreams are made of.  Holla at ya engraver, this one deserves a spot in the hallowed halls of the Honeycomb Hideout.

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

WATCH FOR DA HOOK


HBK of Doughboyz (a/k/a Kiddo) back wit a solid sophomore outing. It's hard to recover from getting snuffed on film, but HBK's resilience should serve as inspiration for anyone who's been jumped by the metaphorical 15 goons that we call life. "Should I" is just a quality top-down Jay & Jermaine gettin gay in the "Money Ain't A Thing" video type banger, a song you could play as you drive up the West Side Highway in your '95 Miata doin it N.O.R.E.'s way and throwin ones in the air on that Raloesque humanitarian tip, some flossin type shit from a man old enough to remember when Cristal was the preferred fizzy wine, before they got racist and mothafuckas started drinking Ace of Spades or whatever.

You know I like that hardbody Detroit shit as much as the next blogbro, but sometimes I need to take a break from snatching chains and let my luscious bowl cut blow in the wind like Thelma and/or Louise. Chuuuch, my friends, CHUUUUUUUUUUCH.

Friday, May 26, 2017

OLD A BAY BAY


Rode the snake from the Creek Boyz lake on this one. Let's get one thing straight: "With My Team" is a certified byanger, got pathos out the anus, but a lotta bloggas out here acting like it's a solemn-faced ode to friendship and nothing else. That's a selective reading. Right after thanking God he's not on a tshirt, Turk P. Diddy is back on his bullshit, reminiscing on a bitch who'll let the whole crew run train on her. Group sex expresses some form of male companionship, but it ain't something Teddy Roosevelt would encourage.

Young Fedi Mula (good postmodern rap names, these guys) spends the majority of his verse ranting about freak hoes. This does not bother me. I rock myself to sleep with problematic content. But to deliberately misrepresent the material is not just dishonest and manipulative, it ignores the fact that good rap in the post-gangster era is about contradiction and tension. Moments of extreme profundity are countered by lines of equal crassness; elegies become orgies. This is good.

Long touted as the nü Brooklyn, Baltimore's rap surge could be a curse as much as a blessing. Picture twenty years in the future: the Baltimore Sun runs an incendiary article on the privileged yuppies living in Young Moose's childhood home. Yeah, it's crazy. But remember: they got gourmet cheese in Bed Stuy.

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

BallGreezyOfficialVevo


Ballgreezy might never hit nationally, but he's one of the few jook alumni who's been able to keep da dream goin once the beans ran out. "Nice and Slow" is like "Shone" with an associates degree, a Dillard's perma-press suit, and a $20 gift certificate to SuperCuts. Joining him is Lil Dred, who some may remember from a quality "Ecstasy"/"On & On"* flip from a few years back. Another entry in the catalog of a low-key South Florida stylistic moment, perfect for the pillaging of a Numero Group or German bootlegger 25 years from now.

If "Look At Me!" = crashing a go-kart high on flakka + kicking pregnant women x cos(Dahvie Vanity - Jessi Slaughter), then "Nice and Slow" = sipping on Henny + pulling on the blunt w/ the hard-earned wisdom of maturity + a candy-paint box Chevy - domestic violence x (cutting out coupons for back-to-school sales / working 60+ hours a week with no health insurance)^69. CHUUUUCH.

_______________________
*How did a guido one-hit-wonder drop the "Triggaman" of more than a decade of Dade + Broward music?

Friday, May 12, 2017

THE FUTURE OF IGNORANCE


What happened to ignorance? In the early oughts J-Zone assembled the urtext of ignorant rap, a testament to the imaginative power of grotesque sex and reprehensible values. Like a rap game 120 Days of Sodom, the songs are a sometimes hilarious, sometimes disquieting catalog of human urges at their most debased.

Lil Pump may not be able to suck his own dick, but he is fashioning a rap that is literally ignorant. There is nothing unsophisticated or unaware about the Ign'ant fraternity's exhaustive odes to bad morals, rendered in an aficionado's vivid detail, whereas Lil Pump's claim to ignorance rests on recycled Lil B tropes and self-proclamation. Even so, his preoccupation with ignorance is weirdly historical, just as his pared down, repetitive, turnt-up approach evokes a regional lineage not apparent at first glance.

Do I fully understand Lil Pump's appeal? Ya mans ain't Jared Fogle; I hear a Miami teenager, one missed Xan away from a seizure, channeling Famous Dex and Lil Yachty. But his commitment to extreme repetition and brevity sets him apart from his contemporaries, suggesting that one day, if he doesn't evaporate in fiber optics as quickly as he materialized, he might define new limits of deliberate stupidity.

Selected comments from Lil Pump's "Flex Like Ouu" short film:


Monday, April 24, 2017

TROY AVE IS ONE OUTRAGEOUS DUDE!


Troy Ave was never as bad or as good as people said he was. I'll admit, the guy is not perfect. Between ridiculing a paranoid schizophrenic's suicide, Masta Killing a well-known blogger (allegedly!), and Shyne Po'ing up da club (allegedly!), he somehow found time to become the Poochie of NYC Rap Saviors, shoved down the throats of an undeserving public by trusted guardians of the culture like Rob Mark Man and Brian "B, Dot" Millgram. He could have been another Hot 97 charity project, dropping the occasional ill mootsarel sliceadicciano amidst a sea of dollar slices; instead he became test subject for tastemakers overestimating the scope of their influence.

"Never Switch" is a glimpse of what could have been: a hybrid of 50 Cent and Foxy Brown for the mumble-rap era, garnished wit da oregano and pepper flakes of a Lady of Rage or Shawnna. The NYC Deep State thought they was slick pullin some collusion shit, but da invisible hand spoke and gave us Young M.A. Now pour a li'l Manischewitz out for Milton Fried Mane.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

LARRY JUNE: INDUSTRY PLANT?


Father forgive me if I'm speakin outta line, but wasn't this fellow making trap music not too many moons ago? Warner Bros. says he's an SF native who took a pit stop in Atlanta, but isn't that exactly what a conglomerate lookin for full market saturation would say? He even toured w/ the lomatia tasmanica himself. Now he's kickin laid-back pimp-raps and droppin explicit RBL Posse references. In his defense, he was collaborating with Iamsu! and Mitchy Slick even back when he was tryna sound like Lil Wayne splicin DNA with the Gucci Clone.

Whatever, the song is a Jam, despite the creeping feeling of false reality and liberal Kush & OJ-isms. Da guy got songwriting chopz, word to Clyde Carson. Larry June takin it back to the days of Sammy, Walt Mink, and Hum!

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

Review #1: Migos "Culture"


Ay wassup bitches? Rap music sucks in 2017 (no DJ Shadow), but it's still better than most things. At the risk of becoming a bitter, hatin' ass manbaby, I'ma try to appreciate life as a wonderful rose that grew from the concrete. So bear with me while I review Culture in the style of FrankieThaLuckyDog, the 21st century Matty C with the street dialect of Bonz Malone. CHUUUUCH!

© 2017 CD Review (Review #1) reviewed on 4.5.2017 by SEThaFortunateHound.

Link To CD: Spotify it or some shit, it's literally everywhere

01. "Culture" feat. DJ Khaled
DY & Tre Pound on tha beat >>> DJ Khaled on the intro. Meme Gods in full alignment. He rants about the fuckboys who don't think Migos represent "the culture." I assumed culture referred to culture at large, i.e. Migos put elements of pop culture in a blender and juice the bitch, but now I'm thinkin it also refers to traditional hip-hop culture. Some Twitter contrarian argued that Yung Rich Nation was the most hip-hop album of 2015 cause they was trading verses back and forth and shit like that. I never heard the whole thing, but it's a dab of ranch for thought...My Rating: 3.0

02. "T-Shirt"
Nard & B + XL handlin tha beat duties >>> What more can be said about it? A great single, mad outlaw country vibes - basically "Mama Tried" without the hillbilly. Even tho they indulge in all that Givenchy & Versace fetishizing, Migos take it back to the utilitarian fashion of the original trapwave and honor the iconic white-T. I shed a tear 'cause a decade-and-a-half later, ya boy still rock the white-T at least 2-3 times a week. Thank you, DFB. Thank you, Jeezy.

Quick thoughts on the video: I guess it's supposed to be a takeoff on The Revenant? Never seen it, I only fux wit highbrow and lowbrow. No middlebrow half-steppin' 4 a brother like me. The ironic art-school video is increasingly de rigeur in contemporary internet-based rap culture, and yeah it's entertaining, but the old man inside me (PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE I'M NOT GAY) misses the wide-eyed sincerity of Hype Williams' maximalist fantasies...My Rating: 4.8

03. "Call Casting"
Buddah Bless on da beat >>> Man, I thought this was a Zaytoven beat for sure. My guy done more for the organ than anyone this side of Charlemagne Palestine. Takeoff keeps it regional with Zaxby's and Shane's Rib Shack references. I hope he ain't tryna get on Munchies, 'cause them boys are snitches...My Rating: 4.1

04. "Bad and Boujee" feat. Lil Uzi Vert
Metro Boomin & G Koop beat >>> I liked this song, then I got sick of it, then I liked it again, and now I'm sick again. At this point it's a "Macarena" that appeals to Marxists. Docking a decimal for Lil Uzi Vert...My Rating: 4.9

05. "Get Right Witcha"
Murda Beatz beat >>> OK song. High point is when Quavo says "chinks"...My Rating: 3.3

06. "Slippery" feat. Gucci Mane
Deko & OG Parker beat here >>> Migos and the Beatles were linked by meme, but they're actually more like a xan'd out Beach Boys, using their voices as another instrument in the mix. Meanwhile, Gucci Mane continues entering the nostalgia phase of his career. Sad but inevitable. Catch tha kid literally turning into Guccirace any day now...My Rating: 4.0

½time: Currently a 4.0 rated CD. I was prepared to shit on this, but now I'm thinkin the Migos are very important cultural critics and Dadaist bricoleurs. This is around the time Frankie takes a shit, so I think I'll do that while I prepare my Adbusters submission.

07. "Big On Big"
Zaytoven beat, finally >>> Anthemic I guess, but I ain't feelin it like I should...My Rating: 3.4

08. "What The Price"
Beat by Ricky Ricks, Keanu Beats, 808Godz >>> Like '80s hair-metal bands with power ballads, Migos have a real sentimental streak. This shit is turgid...My Rating: 2.7

09. "Brown Paper Bag"
Zaytoven again >>> We've heard it a million times. Like the Ramones, they hit upon a sound of pure bonehead brilliance and proceeded to do it again and again, refining the sound without really pushing it forward. Consider Culture their Rocket To Russia. But can you blame a group for not progressing when they came out sounding like nothing else? My Rating: 3.1

10. "Deadz" feat. 2Chainz
Cardo on da beat >>> One constant crescendo with Cardo doin some John Carpenter noodling in the background. My Rating: 3.7

11. "All Ass"
Purps beat >>> Migos doin vaporwave or whatever the kids call it. I fux w/ the dystopian Miami Vice steelo. My Rating: 4.3

12. "Kelly Price" feat. Travi$ Scott
Cash Clay Beats & Deraj Global >>> It's a self-indulgent mess but I kinda like it. Seedy noir type shit. I could see this shit bein on the Lost Highway soundtrack instead of whatever Trent Reznor industrial schlock they used.

The arbitrary reference to Kelly Price encapsulates what makes the Migos annoying and great. They pander to millennials with in-jokes and allusions. We fuckin love that shit 'cause it makes us feel smart and like we belong to something. It's a sad narcissistic effect of bein connected to the internet since we was kids and growing up navigating its contradictory dichotomies: infinite/infinitesimal + atomized/all-encompassing. So we hear the Kelly Price reference and think "Oh, I remember her, she was that fat singing lady," but it's all cheap cause nothing ever actually goes away anymore and nostalgia is artificially accelerated; moreover, I didn't even really remember who Kelly Price is cause I confused her with Deborah Cox...My Rating: 3.7

13. "Out Yo Way"
Purps & Cassius Jay on da beat >>> The one area where Migos definitely improved is the Sad Migos songs where Quavo croons like a drunk doing karaoke at last call. Comedown music...My Rating: 4.1

Overall: Usually I think Migos are like Motörhead if they ran out of speed by the end of the record, but they've gotten better at writing slow songs. That's bottom line with this album - the rapping is the same, the songwriting has improved. Everyone on they nuts cause they got two hot singles and Culture is a brilliant title and the cover art is on some ersatz blaxploitation collagist shit, like a mash-up of the late-period Beastie Boys aesthetic and the cover for Deceit, but whatever, it's a good enough record.

Rankings:
13. "What The Price" 2.7
12. "Culture" 3.0
11. "Brown Paper Bag" 3.1
10. "Get Right Witcha" 3.3
09. "Big On Big" 3.4
08. "Deadz" 3.7
07. "Kelly Price" 3.7
06. "Slippery" 4.0
05. "Out Yo Way" 4.1
04. "Call Casting" 4.1
03. "All Ass" 4.3
02. "T-Shirt" 4.8
01. "Bad And Boujee" 4.9

Average CD Rating Review:
Total Score:                      49.1

Total Songs:                      / 13
-----------------------------------
Average CD Rating: 3.8 (I think. This math shit is a real bitch, don't know how Frankie had the patience to do it for 1700 reviews)

Friday, March 17, 2017

OBLIGATORY RAP POST


Waah waaah! I don't like very much New Rap in 2017! Waaaaaaaah, I'm a baby! The only new shit ya boy rly excited about is SOB x RBE + OMB Peezy, so at the risk of another dancehall post (comin soon bitchez), here is a Peezy feature with some guy named Wntrs, who I guess is one of those mischievous but ultimately squeaky clean post-College Dropout types in the mold of a J. Cole with maybe a li'l Anderson Paak limited-edition Supreme headwrap neo-rap&bullshit t'rown in to cover all demographics. Peezy goes in over some minimal percussion, stumbling a li'l here and there, but delivering them feel-em-in-ur-heart raps that give more credence to Boosie comparisons than his squeaky-ass goblin voice. Skip to :41 for skr8 Peezin. CHUUUUUUUUCH

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA #9: I'M SO BORED WITH THE USA!


I was at the rap club the other day and some of my rap friends asked me why I'm writing so much about dancehall these days. I stroked my chin intellectually and took a sip of my Four Loko (neat). Maybe it's cause 2K17 rap has been pretty uninspiring so far*. It's great the Migos Meme Team been on hyperdrive, but Culture is the Migos we've always known in a new, even more self-aware wrapper - a few brilliant songs + hi-NRG filler + downbeat filler.

The Migos are who we thought they were! And we let them off the hook!

Meanwhile Future is trying to be Lorde if she made Honest. At least he's past the sad pillhead phase.

Maybe it's cause dancehall hasn't quite reached the inevitable, all-consuming postmodern tipping point, where every song contains a thinkpiece and the germ of an ironic film-school video. Ya we get it, the internet is weird. When the meme instinct consumes dancehall, I'll move on to gospel; and when Kirk Franklin starts putting the Lord in air quotes, I'll move on from that, and so on and so forth until I'm memed entirely out of existence. CHUUUUUUUUUCH!
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*I guess Shy Glizzy (I refuse to call him Jefe) got some joints on the latest

Friday, March 3, 2017

POST-REGIONAL REGIONAL LOOKIN GLOBAL


Things done changed since the 2 Live and Gucci Crews ruled Dade County. When 808 kicks fell out of vogue, the identity of Miami rap splintered into something incoherent and upsetting: the fatboy yacht-rap of Rick Ross, Pitbull's tawdry ¡Latino!™ pap, Flo Rida's corporate team-building pop-rap. With the (arguable) exceptions of Trick Daddy and the Raider Klan, the only true regional sound has been on underground dance songs - the blurred lines of stick, jook, and the grey area between fast music and Philly wu-tang.

In 2015, Denzel Curry recontextualized stick music to surrealist effect on "Underwater." Kiddo Marv welds the same local influence to the Haitian roots-fusion Wyclef mines when he's not mining his charity. Past experience shows this kind of thing can turn quickly into gimmickry; but already responsible for the most recent local classic, it might be the Haitian contingent who rehabilitates Miami rap.

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA #8: THE SONG THAT ALMOST GOT AWAY


Dancehall artistes, y'all need to step up ya social media presence. "Artillery" finally hits the web after getting played on Waggy T's show for months. Thought I'd lost it forever when my Shazams was fruitless, and you know Googling the lyrics is out of the question for a cultural tourist like me. I went home and trawled through Waggy's Twitter playlist, searching every potential candidate on Youtube in the hope I'd identify it through a process of elimination. But you can't identify what isn't digitized. I was like, "Yo, does this song even exist or is this all some cosmic joke?" I saw myself as a crazed 70-year-old man broken by a song he hallucinated in 2017 and spent the rest of his life trying to find. "He said something about a gun from Sri Lanka," I'd say to the nurse, teary eyed as she changed my diaper.

Mad airhorns went off when I identified the pleasant song as Pappy V's "Artillery." Unfortunately, Pappy V is the kind of guy who hasn't updated his Twitter since 2012. It ain't real until it hits the internet! In the meantime, I tried to succor myself with alternate takes on the riddim, but nothing matched Pappy's intensity. This the One Click era, Pappy, get with the times. Give me instant gratification or give me death.

Thursday, February 23, 2017

CLOUD RAP'S NOT DEAD, I KNOW IT'S NOT!


T.F is a rappin-ass rapper in the mold of his weed owner Schoolboy Q - an exponent of that kinda half-gangsta, half-pillhead streetwear rap I think I'm probably too old to understand. He's doing his li'l "Broken Language" rhetorical list-rap* on "Unprofessional Shit," but it's da beat that really stands out.

Think the squares used to call it IDM back in the day? Sounds like something the Earthtone boyz might cook up when Andre was in his I like Squarepusher phase, before he swallowed the taint-sweat kombucha and ascended to Heaven's Gate holding manicured hands with eskimo brother-in-arms Jay Electronica. Let me just check up on a crazy hunch I have...*Googles Shea Wooten, confirms he's a white nerd*.

Yeah I'm a cloud rap fan who never saw Clams rock the DAW on Yam$ blog, but I'm still an easier mark for the basic formula than a kid in head-to-toe Flog Gnaw. The 73rd best rap song of 2010 in 2016.
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* T-minus two until the "'Ha' is a direct descendant of 'Broken Language'" thinkpiece drops

Thursday, February 16, 2017

TRAPPIN OUT DA BANLIEUE



French rap ("Frap") has a long, inglorious history of schoolteachers tryna pull a Dangerous Minds (1995) and rly get thru 2 tha kids. Or maybe you slurpin on some 'scargot at a charming li'l bistro only you and other savvy urbanites know about, sippin some of that Bordeaux tryna get your Piaf on, but the restaurateur has Huang-Bronsonian pipe dreams of making it as a hip-hop foodie, and as you receive a plate of foie gras shaped in the Wu-Tang W, MC Solaar comes on the victrola rapping about John Ford.

Shit is weak any way you slice the baguette. This Cheu B & Pon2Mik joint is something of a bangeur tho, borrowing standard Atlantan trap moves and garnishing it w/ a melancholy piano loop. Blame Franco Montana for this sick development of cultural hegemony and imperialism*. Cheu B collabed wit Rich Homie Quan, so you know it's only a matter of time before Paris gets its own Magic City.

Promising I'll never write about German rap ("Grap"), RAP MSUCIS HSYTERIA rides away into the unknown.
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* Pon2Mik is actually from Guadalupe, but all French people look alike so w/e.

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA #7: "REAL" DANCEHALL!



For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Just a lil somethin I thought up when I was gettin my hair blown out by a picturesque guido. It's a truism that applies to dancehall as well as hip-hop. Every time a revolutionary like Shaggy pushes the culture forward, a neo-reactionary contingent rises up to resist the changing of the cultural tide.

We're all familiar with the righteous traditionalism of "real hip-hop." Gappy Ranks is what you would call "real dancehall." It tries to set its scene in the same aural region as a PNP Rally, but it's studied where the original was spontaneous. Find a thicc gyal to bruk on mi cock and I'll be sounding my airhorns all over this Diploid simulacrum. In the back of my mind, I'll know I'm just dancing by myself in the back of a Johnny Rockets, and all the real soda jerks were long ago buried in their beds of malt.

Thursday, January 26, 2017

KODAK GRAY



Honestly couldn't be mo bored w/ Kodak Black these days, and it has nothing to do with the particle-displacing memeification he underwent. As a meme artist, he is up there with Plies, who is up there with Gucci, who is up there with Cam'Ron. That's a talent of some sort.

I don't care that he got fat either, although I think that sets a poor example for the youth who are our future. The problem is that he can barely carry a song on his own, much less an album. Hate to use such a loaded term, but the guy is low energy. He sounds like this Pokemon when he's rapping. On any of his mixtapes, you get maybe two or three good songs. The rest is anemic 'Nolia LARPing and the sub-Pacian moping of a Kevin Gates or Eminem.

Jackboy is some fat kid who is friends with Kodak. He has slightly more energy than Kodak Black, but what I'm really feelin is the ill marimbas. Steel drums and marimbas, let's take 2017 back to the Whole Foods checkout line. Jackboy also earns points for a sloppy Wayne Wonder remake, which is actually way better than it should be. CHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCH

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

DANCEHALL MUSIC HYSTERIA, #6: POST-SCAMCORE



A hearty wa gwan to my readership. DANCEHALL MSUIC HYSTEIRA back in dis mudflap.

Who can forget when Buju Banton and Nardo Ranks had a free and open exchange on the subject of skin bleaching? We all know what happened. Nardo Ranks became a cultural icon and nobody uses cake soap anymore.

History repeats itself. In recent years, the lottery scam has been celebrated in songs by Vybz Kartel and Lady Saw. Legit stars like Vershon and Tommy Lee Sparta, the Criss Angel of dancehall, even caught cases for their alleged involvement in these scams. The set-up is simple. Call up some poor old bastard and tell them they won the lottery. Ask 'em to send a lil money to pay for fees or taxes or some shit and watch the wire transfers pile up. For my gramps, it was some sprinkleheads from the Netherlands. They were even selling him magic crystals n shit, it was weird, I thought he was an old guy and not some new-age earthperson (RIP Gramps). Guess that's what we all gotta look forward to when we become wrinklebags.

Last year's scamcore included Vybz's "Western Union" and Xklusive's cumbersome "Scamma Dem Deh Yah (Big Money Popping)." Now we got this barnstormer. Some speculate "Dem Think A Chattingz" is a response to the Xklusive song. Basically they sayin, "Be about ya walk, not ya talk. Scamming? Where ya money at? 'Tain't nothin to brag about." It ain't exactly anti-scamming, but it ain't glorifying it neither. Anyway, moderately big chune! BO BO!

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I like scamming songs because they are rebellious, and it fits with the rebellious image I have of myself to enjoy punk counterculture songs about illegal activities, even though I would hate it if it happened to me or someone I care about, but I won't have to put my money where my mouth is until I'm staring down the barrel of a gun, which is unlikely to happen, or Alzheimer's, which I am genetically predisposed to, turns my brain to baby formula, and I'm sending my paltry Social Security checks to some guy in Montego Bay and a Thai cutie who likes me for my personality. So until that comfortably distant day, I'll keep promoting songs about selling drugs and swindling old people! I might even write a thinkpiece educating you on why bad things are actually good, and you'll just have to expand your mind you lumpen-dummy :)

Monday, January 16, 2017

PAGING RAY MUNNS AND DJ LETHAL: I HEAR THE EARLY '00S CALLING



RAMP MPUSIC HSYTERIA! is just a product of this toilet culture. It's an unavoidable fact: ya boy came up in the age of the rap-metal DJ. Crazy Town and P Roach is in my bloodline. I was permanently damaged seeing Method Man muggin it up w/ Fred Durst, hit my first lick listening to a radio-dub of "This Means War." Even a hardline trueschooler like P. Diddy contributed to the normalization of this strange, unnatural coupling. U gotta wonder if it was all part of some deranged Clintonite psyop. Put fluoride in the water and hormones in the milk and MC Shan on a Sum 41 record - enfeeble an entire generation when they young and impressionable. Try as I might to distance myself from the rap-rock naval, it's exactly as da god Chester Bennington said: I tried so hard, and got so far / But in the end, it doesn't really matter!

So this blapper from DaBoii fits me like a red Yankees cap and camouflage cargo shorts (optional wallet chain add-on). Metal guitars over a "Boyz N The Hood" beatjack? Chuuuuuch indeed, but what's good with that throwback jersey? Oooh shit, it's a throwback jersey for Calvin Cambridge of Like Mike (2002)? Now that's what I call peak early '00s, boy! All that's missin is the duckbill hair-swoop, Sammie on the hook, and some 9/11 references. Now that the wheels are falling off of Cash Money homages, turn of da millenium rap-rock is ripe for nostalgia mining.

Monday, January 9, 2017

SEASONAL AFFECTIVE DISORDER BOYZ



Real trap emotion comin from da Bay. Astute YouTubers will recognize Lil Sheik from palling around with blawg-hot SOBxRBE; Big Money TuTu made some noise wit a Bay Goes Detroit blapper (banger + slap) now obligatory for youngins wishing to prove their mainey-ness. TuTu is only 15 according to a commenter claiming to be his cousin (fakenewz), so that MCM knapsack prolly holdin some algebra and biology textbooks in addition to the work.

This that get ready for winter music. Takes me back to the days when Kanye MK1 and Just Bleezy dropped some reflective soulful shit right in time for the black dogs of winter to bite u in the cockles, when LL and J. Lo wrung their hands on record and you was sittin cooped up lookin at the gray day outside like, "This can't be life"; when ya feets was in some thick-ass wool socks and the only thing keepin u warm was a broke space heater cause ya landlord too cheap to run the heat at adequate temperatures, fuckin slumlord beeyich, he's gonna get his when you move out and he realizes you scrapped his copper wire like a slick metalurgical villain and bought yaself a Gucci jumpsuit with tha proceeds.

4 real tho, sometimes this fast e-lifestyle wears on my soul, and I been goin thru some thangs too. Can't nobody feel RAP MUSIC HYSESIRIA'S pain. Cause my pain? My pain is mothafuckin' exquisite!

Monday, January 2, 2017

GOTTA LEARN TO LIVE WITH REGERTZ



Ride around with fed cases
Merk a nigga for a couple dead faces
Fuck your babymama, ain't no sympathy
I hope she have a dead baby

Worst part of makin a Best Of list is you know you're gonna uncover a lot more gem-quality rap materials when the dust settles and ya lungs is tired from inflating your own ego. OMB Peezy's "Lay Down," released in visual form on 12/6, is one such example. Maybe ya boy boy is just high on the wings of a new toy, but it's been a minute since I've been on my Rain Man shit and played a song repeatedly on repeated repeat. Peezy moves nimbly between wordy post-drill ice veins flow and the kind of pseudo-melodic raps New Orleans chats lapsed into before motherfuckers decided to play Ginuwine in the damn booth. When's the last time you was singing along to a murder-rap? From all the funk he bringin you might think he's from the Bay, but the young man is representing Mobile, AL according to the information my Google snitches procured.

Keith Welch, Jr. seems to be the go-to director for a lot of quality independent artists these days. Close Redtube for a sec and give that man a follow!