TRINIDAD JAME$ IS DA DOWN SOUTH A$AP ROCKY

So dis old head named Q-TIP obliquely dissed DEF JAM via the Twitter back like 2 weeks ago.  For those who don't know, Q-TIP was a member of A TRIBE CALLED QUEST, then a solo artist, and now a basketcase on some LAURYN HILL/SLY STONE-type breakdown; DEF JAM was a record label, a corporate enterprise that produced and distributed musical recordings back when such things were available exclusively thru physical media (CD, LP, cassette).

So Q-TIP called out DEF JAM for losing they way or some bullshit and certain members of the peanut gallery decided this dyspepsia was directed at their new artist TRINIDAD JAME$, who recently signed for $2 mil.  Mr. JAME$ only been rapping for a few months or some shit, and I guess mad heads have a problem with this.  I don't know.  It ain't really about rappin per se anymore...more about how compelling your brand/image is to the Tumblr market.  In this way, TRINIDAD JAME$ calls to mind A$AP ROCKY, a serviceable albeit unspectacular rapper whose mixtape LIVELOVEA$AP was nevertheless dope on the strength of ill CLAMS CASINO beats and A$AP'S blackman hipster persona.  He found a niche in the market and executed nicely.  Nuff respect.

TRINIDAD JAME$ is basically a southern A$AP: good-but-not-great-rapper with dope beats.  And for those ol bitches who gon be like, "Oh shucks, he cannot rap!  Waaaah, real hip-hip hop, etc etc," then take two listens to a GROUP HOME album and get back to me.  THOSE motherfuckers rapped like they were constipated and had a head cold - and they was boring as shit, I'm talkin zilcho personality - but they got by on the strength of those DJ PREMIER beats.  Add an interest in fashion (reclaiming sandals in the "All Gold Everything" video after they were defamed by JAY-Z or JIM JONES [I can't remember]), some trendy drug talk (pop a molly he sweatin, WOO!), knock-off CLAMS CASINO/"trillwave" beats, a Southern drawl to make it superficially more ignorant and BOOOOOOOOOM: southern A$AP, right down to the dollar sign in the name.

Peace sluts.

DOES GUCCI MANE NEED HIS REQUISITE 8 HOURS OF SLEEP A NIGHT OR DOES HE JUST NEED TO SNORT BLOW IN THE STUDIO?

Sup to all the headshakers and anonymous cretins.  We finna do this once again again.  So yo, like many a rap listener, I got swept up by the GUCCI MANE frenzy of '09.  My dude was killin it with the mixtapes - BURRPRINT 3, GUCCI SOSA, COLD WAR SERIES.  Like, he was goin off to the fullest!  Then he got locked up and checked into a mental health clinic and got a scoop of Ben & Jerry's tattooed on his cheek and kinda dropped off da rap map.

But never fear!  GUCCI dun returned with some fly shit!  TRAP GOD marks the return of that outlandish, impish GUCCI character we all love so much.  But am I da only one who notices the weariness in GUCCI's voice?  Maybe it's a symptom of age - a wiser, more contemplative GUCCI.  Or perhaps he's reluctantly accepted the repetition inherent to an established rap persona; that he is doomed to rap about bezels and trapping and fly bitches in a prison of his own making.  You can hear a similar abatement of aggression in RAEKWON's voice, another rapper who painted himself into a cocaine corner after CUBAN LINX.  Or I dunno maybe he was just RICK JAMES level coked up back in those halcyon '08/'09 days.

FUTURE IS WALKING THROUGH THE DARK WITH AN ERECTION

 

What's rilly real with your life?  I'm talking to you - the bulbous bitches and corn-shucking hatemongers, the understated diddy-boppers sitting on deuce deuces of cardboard and tin foil, the delicate aesthetes sticking suppositories of coke up they bootyhole for that instant, fast-acting high.  Woop woop!

So yo, this kid FUTURE recently come out wit some "whoa shit, I high as fuck on that molly, not sure if I wanna sang or rap" shit and the internet and, you know, "real" "life" and shit been goin' nuts!  I can see why, dawg!  Da kid got a fresh style, fresh beats courtesy of dudes like MIKE WILL and ZAYTOVEN...what da game been missin, namean?

He got lots of songs bout how the girl you in love wit ain't shit, that she just some dumb slut he might fuck when he done hippie flipping.  Or a concept song in which he compares his sexual prolificacy - "I got a bitch in every city" - to that of Michael Jordan.

But on dis track, he just lookin' for some sweet honeydip to be his wife n shit.  It's real sweet.  Makes you think of wandering around your room drunk with the lights off, bumpin' in to shit with your erection, tears streaming down yo face not merely from the pain of stubbing your dingdong, but also the loneliness crushing you as you feel blindly for the phantom dream girl who ain't materializing in yo reality.  But not like a DTF erection, more like a "I just wanna lay in her hair and watch Netflix" kinda erection.  Chuuuuuch!

THUG MOTIVATION 101: CERTIFIED CLASSIC!

Sup fuckboys?  Yo, while everyone was pullin their sausage to Danger Doom and Kanye's Late Registration, the real goons in Da Jack Hole (Wyoming, stand up!) were blastin YOUNG JEEZY's Let's Get It: Thug Motivation 101, taking notes and learning from the master in this introductory course to Thugonomics.  Yafeelme?

Revisionist hoes who hated Get Rich Or Die Tryin' when it came out are clamoring 'bout how that was a classic all of a sudden.  But what about Young Jizzle from the bottom of the map?  This shit defined the transition from the fruity post-Bad Boy sound in the early '00s to that ATL/Southern trap shit.

Y'all remember "trap-hop?"  Some hoes at The Village Voice or Pitchfork were throwin round that wack-ass term before real thugs shot it down.  Chuuuch!