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.

DISNEY CHANNEL IS THE 567TH ELEMENT OF HIP-HOP

Nickelodeon pandered to the urban set in the '90s, but Disney Channel been all about da hip-hop since the days of Hopsin and Alyson Stoner. This catchy and grating slice of Gambinocore samples the Little Einsteins theme song, which I guess is a cartoon program about little shitheads who think they're better than you. Not to get judgey, but these guys would have to be 17 or 18 years old max to have watched that show without it being weird. Lavishly Nasty, evidently Disney Channel obsessed, is old enough to reference Xenon: Girl Of The 21st Century (1999), so let's hope he has a little sister or something.

"Going On A Trip" uses the same formula that made "Hard Knock Life" ingenious or insufferable, depending on who you ask, riding the dissonance of adult-content raps paired with the squarest possible sample. Although Lavishly Nasty is Drake-ian in his adoption of the Migos Flow, relocating it from the trap to the essentially inoffensive act of getting high, concerned parents might want to protect their children from the video's wanton feast of male flesh. It's a sausagefest pool party, replete with hip-hop line dancing, fat white guys doing cannonballs, and more brightly colored tank tops than a late-period Zac Efron film. Definitely the best example of tank-top rap since Chance and Gambino raised their floral print boardshorts up the flagpole and let that shit flap in the wind.

I'M BACK AT IT *JOOKMAN VOICE*: MORE FLORIDA RAP!

The past couple of months have been rough on rap fans. Bankroll Fresh was killed. Phife Dawg passed. Now we learn Afrika Bambaata was allegedly diggin in tha grapes of a Zulu warrior-cub. Florida hasn't had it much better. Our ball teams got bounced from the tourney, we lost a smoove architect, and Marco Rubio suffered the worst treatment a Miamian got from a Queens cat since Officer Ricky's cartoon drubbing on ThisIs50.com. So don't ask me why I'm mothafuckin stressed, mean-muggin watching drill videos and wondering why God took Young Pappy instead of Papa John!

Like Uncle Murda recovering from getting shot in the head, ya boy been nursing his wounds with Newports and Henroc—that and classic Florida rap songs. These mostly encompass the jook era (mid and late-2000s), with a heavy emphasis on Tampa and Polk County artists amidst the usual Miami-Dade and Broward County representatives. Can't forget about Treal from Orlando, or T-Pain coming out of Tallahassee with Nappy Headz. Some were legitimate local hits. Some hit on a more grassroots level. Some have endured far beyond their moment, galvanizing specific lives, places, and groups—classics in the most meaningful sense, even if their reach went no further than an area code or two. Others IDK about. Think of it as a companion piece to my Greetings From The Gunshine State compilation: the Pippen to its Jordan, the King Of Comedy to its Taxi Driver, the shingles to its chicken pox. Life is hard and potentially meaningless, but poppin booties and beans can make it seem worthwhile while you're here.

Acafool - Hata Blockas (2006)
Ballgreezy - Jook Wit Me [Fast] (2008)
Bizzle - Lip Biting Animal (2006) 
Black Dada - Imma Zoe (2008)
Brisco - Just Know Dat [ft. Flo-Rida & Lil Wayne] (2008)
Chad - Slide (2008)
C.O.A. Legacy - Wign (2008)
Don-P - Gone Jook (2009)
DJ Rhymer - Yamaha (2011)
DJ Toedoe - Wign (2008)
DJ Trans - Get It Ma Get It (2007)
Haitian Bop - Stickin & Ridin (2010)
Ice Berg (a.k.a. Ice Billion Berg) - I'm The Shit (2008)
Javon Black - Shawty Tear It Up [Ft. Lil Kee & Strizzo] (2008)
K Kutta - Who Run This (2009) 
Khia - Don't Trust No Nigga (2002)
Krazy - Don't Wanna Leave The Club (1999)
Miami Boys - Let's Get Freaky (2006)
Militant Military - Mz. All Da Way Live (2008)
Nappy Headz - FLA (2002)
Nappy Headz - Robbery (2002) 
Oak Hill Boyz - Paralyzed (2005)
Rated R - In Here Ta Nite (2002)
Reese Head - Bounce Dhatt Ass (2010)
Reese Head - Dhatt (2009)
Sojo (a.k.a. Lady Sojourner) - Do The Thick Girl (2010)
Steven Da Guy - Body Right [Fast] (2009) 
Tae Bae Bae - Teco (2011)
Tampa Tony - Take It Back Hoe (2006) 
Tom G - City Boy Wit It (2003)
Tom G - Hunnid Roundz (2014)
Treal - I'm Not Locked Down (2007)
Young Fella - I'll Pay For It (2008)

I'M A LIT, BLOGGING ANIMAL!

Been a minute since I dropped the critically declaimed Greetings From The Gunshine State bootleg, and while I'm content with the final product, like Jiggaman Clay and his inscrutable chinky-eyed Koreans, I got to learn to live with regrets. First and foremost is the great "Lip Biting Animal" by the late Liberty City rapper Bizzle. Was jook South Florida's response to thizzin—a separate yet parallel MDMA-inspired ripple in time—or was it more of a clubland waviness? Maybe the real essence isn't anything that can be comprehended by the rational mind, something to be intuited only when you're rolling off a triple stack (no molly anachronisms), shirt half-buttoned and sweaty, caressing anything with a pleasing texture.


 
Next we got "Paralyzed" by Oak Hill Boyz. This more of a crunk ode to gettin blotto than the X pill enlightenment of jook's best moments. If we was playing Pokemon, it would be a rock Pokemon to the psychic Pokemon of "Lip Biting Animal."  So go 'head, crack open a refreshing Budweiser beer and get ya Geodude on!

GREETINGS FROM THE GUNSHINE STATE: SELECTIONS OF RECENT FLORIDA RAP!

In some interview I half-remember reading, Trick Daddy mentioned consciously eschewing booty music to escape the limited definition available to Miami rappers at that time. Understood historically, Trick's trepidation makes perfect sense. His occasional forays into Miami Bass environs, however, are studies in absence along the lines of Ghostface going in on classic breaks—teasers of great music we missed by fluke of an MC born in the wrong era.

Since then, the city has given rise to everything from the international schlock-pop of late-period Pitbull to the manga-aisle armpit sniffers of Raider Klan. Out of Liberty City and the ashes of Pac Jam, Miami-style rap has spread from Broward to Tampa, St. Pete's to Tallahassee, taking new form in the hands of each scene and expanding the possibilities of what a Florida rapper can be. And while MMG and Khaled's kharpetbaggers have burnished most regional identity from Florida's (inter-)national presence, strong pockets of post-Bass articulation continue thriving: in the melodics of jook, the mania of stickin-n-rollin, and a continuing dialogue with New Orleans bounce.

Presented here is a collection of my favorite records to come out of Florida in the last decade or so, songs that neither deny the past nor live in it. You won't find this on the Internet—but as with everything, you can.

GREETINGS FROM THE GUNSHINE STATE!

1. CRISTOL - ALL UP N THRU THERE
2. STRIZZO - UP DOWN #TWERKTEAM (FT. LIL KEE) 
3. K KUTTA - PULL OUT THE STICK (FT. S.O. CERTIFIED)
4. DJ CHIPMAN - STICK IT AND ROLL IT
5. P.A. TEEZY - BENNIE BIGGLE WIGGLE
6. UNDA SURVEILLANCE - ON DECK
7. BALLGREEZY - SHONE
8. TAMPA TONY - KEEP JUKIN'
9. PICCALO - STICK AND ROLL
10. GRIND MODE - ECSTASY REMIX (FT. TRICK DADDY)
11. TOM G - JUST JUMPED (FT. J CREEK)
12. NMB STUNNAZ - CLAP THEM THIGHS
13. HUSTLE HOLICZ - THROWED OFF
14. MR. MONEY MAN, WYSEMAN, KIDD - NEIGHBORHOOD SUPERSTAR