A DISCUSSION OF SUMMERTIME '06 BY VINCE STAPLES, PT. 2

Round 2 AM the pool was filled with varicolored vomit.  Lars had stuck drumsticks in two of his orifices.  We was wasted off Miller Lites.

"Told you the VINCE album would grow on you," said Lars, waving a soiled Vic Firth in my direction.

"You was right.  I still maintain that YG and Vince are different strains of the same root sensibility.  They both the premier gangsta rap revivalists, right?  Only difference is YG fully inhabits the character.  Vince stands outside of it.  Put it this way: YG is makin Westerns, Vince is making revisionist Westerns."

"The way I see it is Vince made the album KENDRICK would have made if he wasn't so worried about bein a sympathetic character.  He's the good kid in a mad city.  Vince is less concerned with being liked."

"True, true.  It's the kinda shit Kendrick could make if he focused on making rap albums rather than 'short films.'  He's like KANYE minus the middle-class background, like this is what Ye's last two albums might have been if his celebrity hadn't metastasized to the point that everything is ultimately about Being Kanye.  Vince is more elusive. He's quicksilver.  It's like if ICE T wrote Invisible Man.  There's only one person experiencing the world as Kanye West. There are many experiencing the world in ways similar or identical to the Vince Staples concept."

"It's sort of like our Ride The Lightning."

"I hate you Lars."

Graceland came on and we danced until the early morning, Lars in his sarong and me in my Girbauds.

HOT TAKES IN HERRE

Been liking this hot-take formula even tho the words "hot take" sound disgusting together.  Here are four of my hottest, steamiest takes.

KODAK BLACK - FOR THE FAME
There are only two careers where stints in juvie look good on the resume: prisoner and rapper.  Kodak Black's knack for raps and incarceration suggests he will end up as at least one of the two.  IDK, maybe he is a mathlete or candystriper in his free time, but somehow I doubt it.  The game been missin a steak-and-potatoes reality rapper since Boosie went semi-Recovery on Touchdown, and Kodak seems to be auditioning for the role.  In this instance, his vocals are pitched so high his screech is more munchkin than Boosiean.  If nothing else, a teenager who namechecks Soulja Slim and Gunplay is on the right path.

NINO MAN & JADAKISS - ROAD TRIP
New York rap has been out of style for so long that New York rappers now get the same instinctive scorn Southern rappers got until '05 (at least).  Everyone likes hating New York rap more than they actually hate it.

Stop the hate.  "Road Trip" is oatmeal for the ears.

JIDENNA & KENDRICK LAMAR - CLASSIC MAN (REMIX)
Will the Kendrick bump finally allow "Classic Man" to become the hit it deserves to be?  Hearing K-Dot vamp on something besides rank body odor jazzbar pap is a bitter reminder of the rapper he was before his worst Baduistic tendencies took the reins.

SKEME & THE GAME - FIND OUT
Best song on Ingleworld 2 after "36 Oz."  Now that gay marriage is in the bag, maybe we can direct our energy to getting this Game verse stricken from the record.

FINAL THOUGHTZ ON THE RAP ALBUM THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO CHANGE THE WORLD TILL ITS TWO WEEK CONTENT CYCLE ENDED

IDK man, I like the idea of To Pimp A Butterfly more than the record itself.  When I put on my critic hat and examine the album like a specimen pinned to a table, I know exactly why boners is poppin for this shit.  Kendrick made the album he needed to solidify his status as rap's Serious Artist and Social Critic.  He really said "something."  It was very ambitious, and for that I doff my fedora.

Thing is, I don't subscribe to the theory that music has to be important to matter.  A lot of the best raps of all time are entirely self-referential, conceptually ludicrous, or scattershots touching on a hundred little things but focusing on nothing in particular.  Now we could rap all day about music and the Cartesian divide, but I'll leave that to the experts over at Rap Retard.  Suffice it to say that critics overvalue the "intellectual" in music because that kind of person tends to favor the intellect in general.  To Plump A Butterball is like the musical equivalent of The Ten Commandments.  Very important and big and ambitious, and you know you're supposed to like it, but Les B. Real--kind of boring.

This is music for grad students and Whole Foods shoppers, and all the focus on the album as a sociopolitical statement disregards an obvious fact: it's not very innovative.  Mos Def, Common, and Q-Tip have been flogging the same reheated soul, funk, and jazz moves for years, to a justified lack of critical acclaim.  Changing direction from rap conventions to already-established musical forms does not equal innovation.  Andre got the same kind of misguided acclaim for The Love Below, his self-indulgent love letter to Prince and a forerunner to Butterfly's glorified pastiche.

The most odious thing about the cult of Butterfly is its Oprah's Book Club vibe.  There's an inherent grandiloquence and imperiousness that seem to have future Salon.com thinkpieces in mind.  And as much as I wanna hate on that, I realize his reach transcends the rap fans and hipsters that generally consume this kind of music.  He's trying to position himself next to The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and the Black Star LP on the shelves of people who kind of like rap music, but only when it wears a medallion of profundity on its dookie rope.  It is what it is, and I'm glad Kendrick can legitimize the form for the NPR crowd.

Despite the furor surrounding its release, all the earnest conversation about the album's lofty intentions seems to have fallen by the wayside.  The pace of today's music-media industrial complex is a nightmare and farce.  In the days following its release, people talked like To Primp A Bouffant was going to cure racism and unite the world in a collective recognition of humanity.  But the content machine grinds on, SXSW promotional gimmicks need coverage, and the dialogue dwindles until this landmark of rap and culture itself is resurrected for year-end lists.

I wanna say this is the last time I mention Butterfly, but that corny 2Pac interview is rife with comic potential.  Still, I ain't bumpin this shit or nothing.  This album is like when you was a kid and your mom says, "Eat your brussel sprouts!" except I love brussel sprouts.  Shout outs to brussel sprouts.  I been fuxing more with the Earl Sweatshirt joint, which is far from perfect but a needed antidote to the pompous maximalism of Butterfly.  If Kendrick dropped the rap game Ten Commandments, Earl's album is what we in the biz call a "smaller, more personal project."  Shout outs to projects.

IN CONCLUSION, TO PIMP A BUTTERFLY IS A VERY CHALLENGING AND CONTROVERSIAL ART

He did it!  On Sunday night, Kendrick Lamar released To Pimp A Butterfly on Spotify, becoming the first artist to successfully pull off a prog-rap concept album: his version of There's A Riot Goin' On, The Wall, and The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway.  I would be shocked if he wasn't a theatre kid in high school.  Check for him performing in a flower suit at Bonnaroo this summer.

The most useless writing of the year will be To Pimp A Butterfly reviews.  They were superfluous from the get-go, since anyone who cared dialed up the ol' Spotify as soon as they heard news of its leak.  I expected to hate this album in all its AOR excess, but after a few listens I at least have to respect the hard work that went into its making.  Respecting it doesn't necessarily mean I like it, but it's sad that a lot of reviews read like Adderall term papers from someone who didn't finish the book.  "On To Pimp A Butterfly, Kendrick Lamar explores many difficult themes.  Posing challenging questions on race, paranoia and identity, he refuses to offer easy answers and instead forces the listener to confront the disquieting issues of our time.  Through the personal narrative of a young black man, he says something about what it is to be American in the 21st century--indeed, on what it is to be human."  Everyone's talkin, but no one's saying anything.

Some very talented and ambitious people worked on this album for over a year.  A "this is gay" Tweet would be more profound than some platitudes and reductive abstractions cobbled together over a 24-hour period.  Reminds me of the time my lil homie and I went to Art Basel and eyeballed everything for five seconds before moving on and announcing, "I get it."

To Pimp A Butterfly's early reviews have the unique quality of being fawning and disrespectful at the same time.  The universal critical acclaim says less about its success than critics' laziness and failure to engage deeply with the "difficult" themes alluded to only vaguely.  Maybe it's because the album dropped less than a day before they reviewed it, and they don't really know what those themes are quite yet, hence the eternal cop-out: "This album is dense."  No shit, B.  For an album that clearly intends to provoke conversation and make its listeners uncomfortable, it's ironic that TPAB has so far inspired only consensus and applause.

For better or worse, these surprise releases put fan and critic on equal footing.  At one point in my life I was naive enough to believe critics labored over advance copies for at least a week, really marinating in the nuances of a record instead of rushing to a snap judgement.  Maybe it was like that at one time, but as the ingenious gonzo-satire of Thought Catalog shows, "New Media" is increasingly an opinion factory that runs on ad revenue, fuck integrity.  Traffic don't wait for considered analysis.

PS
Can we all agree he's not making rap anymore?  This is not a rap album.  Not a bad thing, it just issss...ya dig?

ONE TRAIN: WE GO VERSE BY VERSE Y'ALL!

 

So da new A$AP ROCKY - can't front, it's good.  He's coverin all the markets: mainstream club-banger wit "Fuckin Problems," hipsters wit da CLAMS CASINO and SANTIGOLD joints, meth-head skeezers with that weird SKRILLEX collabo.  And on "1 TRAIN," he caters to that fickle group of hobbyists known as HIP-HOP HEADS.  It's a posse cut with a roster reading like a XXL Freshmen list that shoulda been: KENDRICK LAMAR, JOEY BADA$$, YELAWOLF, DANNY BROWN, ACTION BRONSON, AND BIG KRIT.  So who go the hardest?  Let's break it down!

KENDRICK LAMAR

Kind of a forgettable verse.  Maybe we just getting used to consistent excellence?  It gets more entertaining toward the end when he sounds like he's desperately trying to keep from splattering his Fruit of the Looms with diarrhea.

JOEY BADA$$ 

Rhymes "conscious" with "conscience" and "prism" with "prison" in the first four bars.  Threw us for a loop there, BADA$$!  We was just expecting some retread NY Golden Era shit, but you flipped the script n shit!

YELAWOLF

Kills it!  Never been a big fan of his work, but he comes thru sounding like a DUNGEON FAMILY influenced Rumpelstiltskin.  I don't think I'll ever listen to his music on the regular, but thanks for the momentary entertainment, homie!

DANNY BROWN

His best work is in concept-driven songs, which doesn't lend itself well to a guest verse.  Like KENDRICK it just sounds like he's treading water.

 

ACTION BRONSON

Kills it!  Erryone knows he sounds just like GHOSTFACE, but he pushin that aesthetic to revelatory extremes, namedroppin none other than former Cleveland Indian KENNY LOFTON and comparing his girl's walk to a Chilean horse.  He even drop the weirdest boast ever, talkin bout fixin the game between Georgia Southern and Grambling.  Big money high roller!

BIG KRIT

Never paid much attention to this young man (he seems nice), and I think I'm gonna maintain like that.  He uses his verse as an opportunity to advertise his existence.  The cynical references to "choppin blades" and "grippin grain" say, "Hey hip-hop fans!  You may not have heard of me, but if you're looking for some UGK influenced rap, why not give me a listen?"

CONCLUSION
I think I'm gonna give the crown to ACTION BRONSON with a slight edge over YELAWOLF.  I ain't gonna listen to his music or nuthin, but he itched all the right spots on this track (no homo, seriously).

Imagine that: ACTION BRONSON and YELAWOLF are the winners.  For once the white man wins!

KENDRICK LAMAR: MEET THE NEW AOR

 

 

The year was 2012.  Mad heads was lost tryna find they way up outta KENDRICK LAMAR's bootyhoole.  But despite being lodged deep up in an anus, they persisted in sounding trumpets of accolade.  And it was cool.  He made good music and all.  But sometimes it all felt too well crafted, like he was following pointers out of a '70s issue of Rolling Stone.  An AOR (read: ALBUM ORIENTED ROCK) rap album.  Lacking the spontaneity and disposibility that makes popular music so irresistible.  So high concept it sometimes felt like we was listening to a PINK FLOYD album.  Wasn't no party starter. 

Dat's fine and all.  But I often feel as if music critics view popular music thru the rubric of high art, which is entirely inappropriate when you're dealin with a popular form.  I just wanna have fun and forget the worries of my shitty fuckin existence.  Dat's why I always be goin for TRINIDAD JAME$ and 2CHAINZ before I go for KENDRICK LAMAR.  Yeah, I know on a aesthetic level they far inferior, but the stupidity help me get thru the day.

So fuck it mane.  I stay tuned to Clear Channel monopoly radio, cause that shit be pumpin the hits that help a menial worker like myself carry on.  I ain't got time for an aesthetic approach to pop music.  Play me da KENDRICK LAMAR hits interspersed with some ROSCOE DASH or PRETTY RICKY or KIRKO BANGZ  -- anything that will help me swallow down the poison of trickle down economics.

BEST O' THE YEAR 2012 Y'ALL!

Another year down in the books.  It's been a good one, yo!  Personally, I been runnin shit in the J-Hole (Wyoming, stand up!) makin mad cream thru illegal means; I also got my ski instructor's license.  As far as rap goes, shit been poppin off dis year.  Let's get get get it!

2CHAINZ
He sound like a drunk uncle/goose, but you couldn't fux with the Feature King of 2012.  He'd just show up on some track, have a few great put-downs and an equal number of groaners, all delivered in an awkward, often off-beat braying.  Rap game DON RICKLES crossed with FOZZY BEAR and maybe even a little BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT.  You know why that new A$AP single sounds like it ain't even his song? Cause 2CHAINZ on it.  Well, 2CHAINZ and DRAKE, a/k/a the 21st c. rap game MARK PRICE and BRAD DAUGHERTY.

 

BLACK HIPPY/TDE

Yeah, everyone on KENDRICK LAMAR'S cojones, and rightfully so: he dropped da album of the year.  And unlike the flawed Section 80 LP, he didn't make any major aesthetic missteps, e.g. putting an MOR/Kevin Rudolf-type whiteboy singer on the chorus.  Real talk, that's one of the biggest evils in rap music these days (see BIG BOI'S Sir Lucious Left Foot for the gravest example).  But on top o' that, the underrated AB-SOUL dropped the quasi-conceptual Control System, an album that taught everyone at least one new vocabulary word ("chattel" in my case -- thanks Ab!).  And SCHOOLBOY Q continued to sound bemused and spiteful on Habits & Contradictions, talkin bout drunk drivin and all the things I love.

JUICY J - "BANDS A MAKE HER DANCE"
Dis was the biggest surprise of the year for me.  Never thought JUICY J would reinvent himself as a lovable, ageless rake, unapologetic about his inability to resist certain vices (ratchet pussy, drugs, etc).  This shit is still gettin overplayed, but still gets ppl hyped when it comes on, perhaps because it has an elusive flash of truth embedded in its Dionysian revelry.

TRINIDAD JAME$
Fuck y'all.  Lots of heads was sayin that DRAKE'S "Bitch you wasn't with me shooting in the gym" was the year's best line.  I mean it's fun to say and all, but really?  We can do better, America.  The best line of the year was obviously TRINIDAD JAMES' "Pop a molly, I'm sweatin! Woo!"  The runners-up are 2 CHAINZ' a/k/a Hair Weave Killa's "When ya girl leave me, she need a hair salon!," JUICY J'S "You say no to ratchet pussy / Juicy J cain't," and 2 CHAINZ' "She got a big booty, so I call her big booty."  There were no other good rap lines this year.  Sorry.

THIS PHOTO OF JAY-Z
Damn, look how old he look; moreover, how stupid he looks in that BBC sweatshirt and backwards cap.  You like 46, B!  Wear some age appropriate attire - Sperry topsiders, baggy Dockers, raggedy ass polo shirts. Until then, JIGGA has officially entered "Cool Dad" territory.

MEEK MILL
Along with 2CHAINZ, MEEK MILL owned this year.  He had the radio hits and rapped circles round the comp on Dreamchasers 2.  More importantly, he was involved in one of the funniest rap stories of the year, i.e., his presence in DRAKE'S posse when CHRIS BROWN got his face busted open by an errant champagne bottle.  Thank you for your service, Milly.