RIP EBE BANDZ

Feels weird writing a RIP post for Bandz, 'cause I rarely even write RIP posts for artists who have meant a lot more to me. I have no profundities or answers to dispense when an artist I admire dies.

But about a week before he went missing he came back to my attention when this joint with A-Wax came up on Spotify shuffle. "First Thing" reminded me of two things: A-Wax's facility for songs of dirtbag melancholy, and the out-of-place chubby white kid in the "Demons" video who looked like an upper-middle FSU fratboy Rebecca Blackin' his way through a Chiraq fantasy. He claimed eastside Chicago and gang affiliation, but all that really mattered was he actually had some skill as a rapper.

Around the same time I was getting deep into the rabbit hole of the equally awful and impressive Chiraqology subreddit, where uncredentialed "insiders" and Swedish thugs catalog the byzantine cross-pollination of Chicago rap and the city's gangland underworld. Fact or fiction, these guys could be historians or true-crime writers if they ever get out of the streets or their grandmas' basement. I was reading these Heredditus's accounts of King Von sliding into K.I.'s DMs  and L'A Capone's body count when I read the news that EBE Bandz was missing.

Like any good crime story, the details were cryptic and gruesome. His house was trashed. Police thought his body might be locked in the trunk of his car. Although the car was parked in his garage, they couldn't open it short of a warrant or his consent. Was the body just rotting there on account of judicial process? Adding to the intrigue, prior to his disappearance Bandz allegedly pulled a gun on two young women, one of them 16, who objected to his uncle's (alleged) leers.

The rumor mill churned up its usual glut of cockamamie theories. Bandz was killed by rival rappers. Bandz was killed by rival gang members. Bandz was killed by collaborators or video mob-scene extras. Turns out it was a couple of nerds, one of whom was a friend and looks like a Latin Nick Mullen. They bludgeoned him with a baseball bat, set the body on fire, and left it in the woods of Winnebago County.

As with anyone's death, there's nothing I can say to give this resolution or meaning. I write this to remember a rapper whose songs I've enjoyed, and to relate the peculiar condition of being a rap fan on the internet in the year 2019.

MAKE MEXICAN-AMERICAN RAP GREAT AGAIN

The artistic merits of "Fuck Donald Trump" were secondary at best, irrelevant at worst. It received critical acclaim for satisfying provisions of an unspoken agenda: hunger for political rap in the mainstream, historically the easiest way to legitimize the genre, and the desperate need for an anti-Trump anthem. Fuck Donald Trump, sure, but the rhetoric of "FDT" falls too often into The Donald's own talking points. The only Mexican mentioned by name is El Chapo; even then it's in the context of violence. After Mexplaining so hard on the original, you'd at least expect Nipsey and YG to get a Mexican rapper on the remix. Instead we have G-Eazy and Macklemore making me want to build a shrine to Lord Jamar.

Where are the Kid Frosts of today? Like Christian rock, Chicano rap is a megalith outside the mainstream, consumed by the thousand despite minimal-to-nonexistent press. YG made overtures in the right direction featuring Sadboy Loko on My Brazy Life. Whereas Sadboy is an extension of Chicano gangbanger rap, King Lil G is a sensitive street rapper softened by pop instincts, a cholo take on the J. Cole formula of conventional lyricism, polished song structure, and Millenial narcissism.

"Cold Christmas" is more along the lines of A-Wax's sad dopeboy mope-alongs, without the hard scumbag edges. When Wax recollects, it's usually about stabbing someone in juvie or an ex-homie or lover who eroded his trust in humanity. In contrast, Lil G's voice cracks with vulnerability when he remembers his mother's cooking: She made me happy with Mexican food...she made the greatest food. Unctuous as he sounds, Lil G's underlying moral core sells better than Wax's white-trash fatalism (I been bangin so long even moms says brazy), where the past is dark and innocence is irretrievable.

Cloying theatrics aside, it's still a pretty good song. A collaboration between Lil G and Kap G called Mexican Gs? Ándale!

SPANISH GUITAR FILES: DEATH EDITION

THE LAST EMPEROR & POETIC - "ONE LIFE"
95% of the time, Spanish Guitars are used to evoke a sense of pathos in the listener.  On "One Life," ex-GRAVEDIGGA Poetic confronts the ultimate horror: slow, painful death.  Sign of the times: poptimism has established such hegemony in critical discourse that traditional underground rap is hopelessly out of style.  Catch me crying into my notepad at the Scribble Jam revival.



A-WAX, WOODIE, B-DAWG - "A REBEL'S PRAYER"
This one's for the boyz choppin meth in the trailer park.  Jersey game on flex, Woodie spittin that realness for all you sheeple. His stilted delivery sounds like a parody of a white guy rapping or EMINEM in Dr. Demento novelty-song mode, yet his white-trash pain was real.  Woodie offed himself in 2007. Rap Game William Cooper.