VOLVO IS A GREAT CAR

Ridin' round in my brand new '99 / Fo' do',  Volvo!
Trick Daddy, "Shut Up," Book of Thugs: Chapter AK Verse 47

I always liked Trick Daddy, but as I grew to be a man of understated punk elegance, I began to appreciate some of his background idiosyncrasies. At a time when most rappers coveted butterfly-door Lambos or the Viper with the stripes, Trick was all about a Swedish soccer-mom sedan with more safety than the dry thrusts of a BYU dorm room (a/k/a da Provo Soak).

Through his words, I came to appreciate the boxy Scandinavian design of the sedans and station wagons that rocked the worlds of yuppie parents in the late-90s Eastern seaboard. Class is for men, swag is for boys! So I can't ride with DrakeO the Ruler when he casts aspersions on a fuckin JD Power legend. And it isn't just some nondescript slander. After dissing Volvo as a brand, a staff, and a record label, he sets his sights on Volvo's 1996 line.

FUCK

YOU

DRAKEO

Listen, bud, I never listened to your ass 'cause your name is literally some nickel-and-dime copyright dip. Back in 2003, my mans used to write a comic called DougH. It was the Bart The General of graphite-driven Doug comics. You are the DougH of rap. Drinking Sprite and Simply Orange on your album cover, what kind of message does that send to the kids? That it's cool to ingest too much sugar? FOH, beet juice is the real drink of champs.

DrakeO, I'm hoping you get free, but I'm warning you - when they hand you that bus pass and you're waitin for your ride, I'ma be training to fight you for what you said about the Volvo. And don't get it twisted. I might not look like a real humdinger, but like the Volvo I so love, I can take a damn beating.

DrakeO, you dress like Deadpool, and I will fight you. RAP MUSCHSE HYSTERIA OUT!

BLOOD ON THE WET WIPES

Does anyone actually miss the Old Kanye? The whole thing is a hopeful meme-in-waiting cooked up by the PR department of his Meet Dave brain trust. The Benz and a backpack concept was cool in theory, but it also meant he was palling around making terrible music with Talib Kweli and Mos Def. That turned into making terrible music with John Mayer and Daft Punk, which turned into terrible music with Hudson Mohawke and the Travis Scott replicant, so basically there's been a linear progression from Old to New. It's the least compelling rap dichotomy since T.I. vs. T.I.P. When you look back on the way he dressed, you realize he was just a fedora away from hanging out in the manga aisle showing off his rare Magic The Gathering cards. And yoooo, did the Old Kanye even exist??? Or was it just a wishful figment of our 'maginations? Ima wait for you to pick ya jaw up off the floor.

He can keep his leather pants and kilts. The only blip on the Kanye kontinuum I miss is the one where a Trick Daddy collaboration wasn't an insane proposition. It sounds exactly like the cut-and-paste job it is, but if you put it close to your ear like a seashell, you can hear it for what it was...a golden era! I'll take Trick's "Can't Say No" over Ian Connor's any day.

RAP GAME JERRY BRUCKHEIMER

"I SWEAR I NEVER TELL ANOTHER SOUL" (FT. YO GOTTI, FUTURE, TRICK DADDY)
The Palestinian you love to hate is back! Picture my schadenfreude when I realized Future stans would have to endure the latest brain dead ad-libs from rap's reigning king of What does he do again? Y'all hate on Khaled, but the man understands the zeitgeist. He saw that millennials was movin away from McDonald's and BK and got on that slow fast-food wave - boom, Finga Licking Chicken is born. And like Finga Licking Chicken, you got options on a Khaled mixtape. You ain't want chicken? Try some of that lobster, son. You don't fuck wit da MMG Session Players? Here's a side of Beans and Jada.

Act like there's been a better major label mixtape DJ since Clue. Like any true mixtape technician, Khaled checks off so many audiences that any rational listener is only gonna fuck wit about three songs, and maybe only part of those songs. But ay, that's the price of admission to this rap game variety show. Anyone puttin Trick on a song with Future is a'ight in my book, even if I'm ambivalent on the lyrical blah of Yo Gotti. Keyboard warriors, stay at home: Khaled's gonna keep makin money and shouting his name like a giant, dumb toddler. Let the haters hate and watch the chicken pile up.

TRE+19 YEARS

If Tre+6 are remembered at all, it's probably for their appearance on the best song of last decade.  Other than that, they put out a promising LP on Slip-N-Slide that never got a follow-up even after some profile-raising appearances on Trick Daddy's commercially successful early-mid '00s albums.  Trick blames Slip-N-Slide's Ted Lucas for that, and I been inclined to take his word since the Cribs episode where he sold a generation on the hygienic virtues of wet wipes.

Tech Life suffers from the same thing that has plagued most Miami rappers since the demise of the bass scene, namely the lack of a definitive regional sound.  While the underground cribs moves from the drill scene and Hypnotize Minds YouTube playlists, the aspirants on South Beach drink whatever Jim Jones is putting in their flute (pause?) or follow the MMG corporate handbook to the point of sterilization.  But despite obvious debts to the West Coast, Money Mark (no piano) and C.O. (no Rohzay) were building toward something they never saw through.

Video courtesy of Money Mark's YouTube channel, where the curious will also find his recent work.  The VHS dub is v "authentic" if u into that, but ya boy can never be mad at a quality take on the "Genius Of Love" sample.  I be watchin this video seein overpasses and shit and I'm like, "Yo, that's my overpass. We made it, son!"

Bonus beat: Da godz flip Metallica's "Fade To Black," I reach for my Spanish Ibanez.