December 3, 2019

The Danny Brown Annual Appreciation Post (a/k/a Max Continues to Explore the 2012 XXL Freshmen Class, Part VIII)



This is the eighth year I’ve decided to do this, but I still can’t come up with another way to introduce 2019’s entry, so here I am, plagiarizing myself once again for your amusement.

“Ever since I made the horrible decision to maintain a 7-Up-esque series following the rappers chosen for [the XXL Freshman Class] in 2012, keeping tabs on each of the ten artists and their respective careers since gracing the magazine’s cover, I’ve found myself struggling to both (a) still care, in most cases, and (b) find music representative of the growth one would assume each man (and one woman) had undertaken in order to organically prolong their professional lifespans.” 



Below are my thoughts on songs each represented artist released from January 1, 2019 through December 1, 2019, with exceptions that I’ve noted below. At this point, you two already know what I’m trying to do here, so I suggest you enjoy the ride, maybe check out a couple of the songs listed below, and save the vitriol for when I undoubtedly trash your favorite album or artist at some point in the near future.

Thanks for reading!

MACHINE GUN KELLY (formerly MGK, formerly MACHINE GUN KELLY, formerly MGK, formerly MACHINE GUN KELLY)

What I wrote before: “.... Kelly is the most focused I’ve ever heard him be, obviously because he was both pissed off and amused that he had gotten under [Eminem]’s skin …”

Song I listened to this time around: "El Diablo”

Coulson Baker (Bird Box, The Dirt) is slowly building his film resumé, but rapping still appears to be a passion of his, and I have a begrudging respect for nearly anyone that can manage to do both at the same time while maintaining the same level of quality. Now that isn’t to say I’m a fan of MGK: I have nothing against the man, but, as we can all agree, there are far too many rappers in the game to be able to confidently follow each of their respective narratives. Kelly popped back onto the radar of most of us hip hop heads last year, when he took the bait and responded to Eminem’s multiple disses towards him, and depending on who you believe, actually emerged relatively unscathed. (Me. Believe me. Hell, Marshall’s own response, “Killshot”, failed to generate any sympathy for Slim Shady even though it was a better song on a technicality, by which I only mean “Marshall’s a better songwriter”.) On “Rap Devil”, the man sounded both bemused and aggressive, as though he had been waiting for that moment his entire career. “El Diablo” keeps that same energy: even though it isn’t officially related to the beef (not so sure that song title was a coincidence, but sure, whatever you say), it does feature another instrumental by Ronny J and Nils, and MGK’s energetic boasts-n-bullshit make him sound reinvigorated, as though Marshall snuck into his bedroom one night and replaced the battery in his back. I’m not saying Baker says anything of note on “El Diablo”: his threats are of the more vague and general variety and are aimed at his “competition”, but they don’t sound awful. Maybe it’s just the production that works for him: Ronny J and Nils seem to bring out the more cocksure side of Coulson, or at least they have during these articles. Baker may ultimately quit the game and focus on Hollywood full-time – he’s already received a starring role (playing Tommy Lee in the Mötley Crüe biopic The Dirt), so it’s just a matter of time – but at least he isn’t actively coasting behind the microphone. Still think his signing to Bad Boy Records was a mistake, though – Puffy doesn’t know what to do with this guy.


DANNY BROWN

What I wrote before: “…He’s certainly no stranger to music soundscapes that skew really fucking far away from our chosen genre: I think feeling comfortable genuinely makes Brown uncomfortable...”

Song I listened to this time around: "Theme Song “

After a relatively quiet 2018, where I had to resort to critiquing a guest cameo outside of the hip hop spectrum because there literally wasn’t anything else for me to work with, Danny Brown officially returned to our respective radars with uknowhatimsayin¿, his fifth studio album and first to be executive-produced by Q-Tip, which is a pairing nobody saw coming. As expected, his revival was met with unyielding praise and a level of hyperbole typically reserved for artists with stupidly-large fanbases such as Kanye West. While I still have yet to move past the first song on Old (yeah, I still haven’t moved past the opening track, it’s just too perfect, and also, more realistically, I’ve moved on to other things), I have listened to the new Danny Brown, “Theme Song” being the track that has stuck with me the longest. This outright weird Cartie Curt production features Daniel rapping over damn-near-discordant violin strings coupled with a repeated vocal sample that makes it seem like his bars are doing battle with a demon that has been trapped within the instrumental for the past three millennia. In other words, pretty much a perfect backdrop for Brown’s lackadaisical braggadocio. Backed by apparent hypeman-for-hire A$AP Ferg, Danny Brown takes out his perceived enemies (“Catch another body before the song gets mixed”), gives a shout-out to the late Prodigy, and announces the track as “the theme song for bitch-ass n----s”, which, welp. Danny Brown hasn’t ever lacked confidence behind the microphone, but his cocksure boasts and threats come through much more concise than before, as though the man had taken a lengthy hiatus and honed his instrument prior to his return. As usual, he’s likely the one guy you two will agree actually deserves continued coverage on this site, but I can’t really blame you, as “Theme Song” was catchy as shit.


KID INK

What I wrote before: “...the biggest waste of my time today, and I haven’t even gotten to Iggy Azalea yet...”

Song I listened to this time around: “Do Me Wrong”

Brian “Kid Ink” Collins doesn’t seem to have released any new material in 2019, apparently believing that his eight-song EP that dropped last December, Missed Calls, was a sufficient way to remain in the public eye while he took a break from cosplaying as Chris Brown. That’s an unfair generalization, sure, because I don’t recall hearing anything about Kid Ink beating up his girlfriend and never feeling remorseful about it, but the two appear to be close-enough friends to collaborate often, and the company you keep, and so on. The Go Grizzly and Squat Beats instrumental on the project’s opening track, “Do Me Wrong”, is melodic trappy-rappy reminiscent of the music from the Sheck Wes breakout hit “Mo Bamba”, but far less resonant: there’s a reason why “Mo Bamba” became as popular as it did, while you’ve likely never heard of “Do Me Wrong” until today’s post, and I mean that even if you follow Kid Ink’s career. But the music isn’t the focus today, the artist himself is, and in that respect, this track is yet another miss, although at least he manages to pull off the writing decently enough. “Do Me Wrong” is his attempt to beg his girl to not cheat on him (or “Do Me Wrong”), threatening to destroy her life if she steps out of the relationship (but not “’til my facts straight”, a rare show of restraint and maturity that doesn’t turn up often in hip hop, let’s be honest). The chorus is overly whiny while the two verses Ink sing-raps are more antagonistic, but in the defensive sense, as he doesn’t want to take action unless he can confirm his lady’s faithfulness. This isn’t a terrible idea for a song: the contradictory feelings that bubble up in this situation are terrific fodder for a good writer. It’s just that Kid Ink doesn’t wield a strong-enough pen that can display every facet of this issue at once. At least he’s shown a bit of improvement?


FUTURE

What I wrote before: “...: his slurred flow and choice of vapid instrumentals (usually) should have grown tired and cliché by now, but hey, what do I know? I’m just a guy writing words that appear on your computer or phone screen who happens to know what the fuck he’s talking about when it comes to this shit...”

Song I listened to this time around: "Overdose”

I wrote last year that “it wouldn’t be a true Future song if there wasn’t some form of drug use glorification, am I right?”, and for the eighth year in a row, Nayvadius Wilburn proves me (and his audience) correct: after starting his lone verse, which is buried within his repetitive hooks, with the line, “I’m too rich to be sober”, he dives into a snapshot of his rich rapper lifestyle, one where not only does “my right pocket got drugs” and “my left pocket got drugs”, he even admits that “I’m lookin’ like I’m on drugs”, a bit of self-awareness that doesn’t extend far beyond the two minutes the Southside beat for “Overdose” takes to play through. (And yes, I chose “Overdose” because it’s fucking short. Sue me.) Future slurs his way through the track sounding barely coherent, as he is more drug than man today, but he still manages a single jewel: “You can be the wave, I’m the ocean.” Quite the flex, my man. Which he then ruins by talking about how he “done fucked the face of a fan”, which, ugh. (Rappers talk about receiving blowjobs all the time, but that description is far too violent and rape-y for someone supposedly strung the fuck out all the time.) The beat is meh, which is to say it sounds like nearly everything else I’ve ever heard Future perform over – is it too much to ask for the man to challenge himself with a new sound? Not necessarily a complete shift (he’d sound awful over some DJ Premier-esque boom bap), but something? Of course it is: the man is successful enough, there’s no reason for him to ever make changes to his blueprint. But this shtick won't hold for much longer.


ROSCOE DASH

What I wrote before: “…Out of everyone I’ll write about today, Da$h is my pick for the artist most likely to not have an entry for me to review in 2019…”

Song I listened to this time around: "Ye’s”

From what I could find, Roscoe Dash hasn’t, in fact, released any new music in 2019. However, I’m forced to give him a pass, considering that he apparently dropped a seventy-two song project called 5Thy5ive at the very end of 2018, which is more than enough to warrant placement in today’s update (but not for 2020, so what I said last year still applies). Of course, I’m still operating at a loss, since my focus for today, “Ye’s”, actually hit the Interweb in 2017, but that’s just a testament to how little work this man has put into the game, recording in fits and spurts in the hope that, somehow, this will allow him consistent success within our culture. Which isn’t how any of this works. “Ye’s” isn’t a bad song, exactly: Da$h flows over the instrumental like water rushing up onto a beach, except minus the grit and dead sea animals, as there is nothing hardcore about his genial “I got more money and can score more pussy than you” subject matter. He isn’t convincing in the least bit, especially when it comes to the finances (rumored rideshare operators should be more cautious when it comes to throwing their dollar bills at the strippers of their choosing), but if I’m being honest, this track is so inoffensive that I was willing to look past Da$h’s obvious flaws as a rapper (mostly that he isn’t a very creative one), and you likely will, too. Not every song has to shift one’s worldview. I still worry about Roscoe Dash’s longevity, and by “worry”, I mean, “yeah, this guy is as good as gone.” I mean, he hasn’t exactly released anything that will make either of you two miss him, right?


HOPSIN

What I wrote before: “…[Hopsin] does sound alright on here, but ‘alright’ isn’t something most artists strive to be…”

Song I listened to this time around: "I Don’t Want It”

Hopsin seems to have taken the wrong lessons away from his Eminem standom: “I Don’t Want It”, a loose track released this past year, finds the man essentially “Cleanin’ Out My Closet”, unleashing all of his inner demons on wax as a way to warn his fanbase that he may not be making music that much longer. In and of itself, this isn’t a bad thing: Marshall Mathers managed to score a hit single while bitching about his mommy issues, and he didn’t bother sanitizing his feelings for the mainstream. Hopsin struggles with similar demons here, having never had a place or a person to turn to to talk about his problems, music being his only real outlet. Over a shitty, simplistic beat that knows enough to stay out of Hopsin’s way, the man talks about how he never formed any familial bonds that could have potential helped him keep his depression in check early on. He pins the blame on both of his parents, but while his father comes across as truly deserving (as he wasn’t around), his mother catches a stray merely because she was always working. Um, bro, she was a single mother, it seems: how the fuck else was she supposed to take care of you? Maybe let her off the hook here? His displaced anger also ends up causing the implosion of his former label, Funk Volume, shattering the relationships, both business and personal, he had formed with his artists, although he’s quick to not accept all of the blame there, so it's obvious we’re not hearing the full story. That’s all “I Don’t Want It” is, ultimately: a man trying to rationalize and reconcile his past actions with his current status in life while politely declining to accept all of the responsibility. His bars are passionate enough that he likely has a bunch of people on his side, but one thing he has yet to provide is any reason why we should feel any empathy for his situation: Hopsin is a successful-enough rap artist who obviously has some money, because he spends a good chunk of “I Don’t Want It” bitching about how people keep asking him for money. He gets no sympathy here. It doesn’t help that he follows the Eminem blueprint of paring a cheap-sounding instrumental with a sung hook that underscores just how manufactured all of this truly is. 


MACKLEMORE

What I wrote before: “...[Macklemore now plays] the type of “silly” [role] that naturally comes from artists who have already reached the heights of their career and now just don't give a shit how you react to their work...”

Song I listened to this time around: "Shadow” (featuring Iro)

Macklemore already has his Grammy, so he doesn’t need to do anything else in this here rap game and he’ll still have accomplished more than most of your faves. “Shadow” is the man not really even trying: this generic quasi-inspirational effort exists solely to appeal to the soccer moms in his fanbase that still bump “Thrift Shop” in their minivans to the utter mortification of their children. The lyrics are a bunch of generic platitudes that one wouldn’t be able to pick from a lineup if they had robbed you in broad daylight with no face mask on and having dropped its driver’s license while running off. Not that any of this even matters to Macklemore: he’s fine. He doesn’t need any of this anymore. He’ll never reach the same heights of his past even if (or, more accurately, when) he decides to reunite with producer Ryan Lewis, so there’s certainly no need to put in any effort now. “Shadow” was created to be played during end credits crawls of third-rate animated films. Macklemore could have released this song on a Kidz Bop compilation as-is, even with the occasional curses: parents would probably just use them as teachable moments. In conclusion, Macklemore should have shipped Kendrick Lamar that Grammy the evening he beat him out for it.


DON TRIP

What I wrote before: “...every year in this ridiculous series is an opportunity to turn it all around...”

Song I listened to this time around: "Get It”

I still don’t follow Don Trip’s career outside of this series of articles: there are just too many threads I’m pulling on these days, and seeking out even more will ultimately drive me to the brink of insanity. “Get It”, the first track off of the They Don’t Love You mixtape the man dropped earlier this year, is my only exposure to Don Trip in 2019, and just like last year’s entry, this wasn’t bad. The instrumental leaves a lot to be desired, but this time around the hook is catchier (if simpler), and Trip’s single verse (and bookending hooks) about how his hard work has ultimately paid off may be much more inspirational for you two than whatever the fuck Macklemore was aiming for above. “I thought Top Ramen was cool before I tried filet mignon,” is a far more relatable bar than many older hip hop heads may be willing to admit. It’s nice that Trip is still putting in the work almost a decade into this series, never taking even the briefest brushes with success for granted, but if this is the lane he’s chosen to master, I’m not going to lie and pretend that I’ve changed my mind about the man. Good for him and all, but he isn’t on my radar, and likely not on many others, either.


IGGY AZALEA

What I wrote before: “...while her cockiness requires no tweaking, she could benefit from the use of a co-writer, as her bars are generic boasts-n-bullshit that never feel truly earned…”

Song I listened to this time around: “Fuck It Up” (featuring Kash Doll)

2019 saw Amethyst “Iggy Azalea” Kelly finally releasing a proper full-length follow-up to her chart-topping debut, but because the executives that run record labels are morons that don’t understand what consumers are actually responding to, she sold almost zero copies of her sophomore effort, In My Defense. Because you see, as I’ve posited every single goddamn year since starting this series, nobody gave a shit about Iggy Azalea on her breakthrough song “Fancy” – they all liked Charli XCX. They all sang along to her chorus. Azalea, unfortunately, took the wrong lessons away from her brush with success, doubling down on her “blaccent” on “Fuck It Up”, a weird choice for a single since there is absolutely no point in even pretending to clean it up for the mainstream. “Getting’ money feel way better than busting a nut,” Iggy raps during the hook of a rap song that is all boasts-n-bullshit with virtually no setup. Just what exactly is Azalea doing that is getting her any sort of income whatsoever? What the hell is guest Kash Doll doing here, and why is she okay with Iggy’s blatant cultural appropriation during her verse and hook? Did producer J. White Did It truly do it? (That one’s easy: no.) Kash Doll has a couple of funny lines, but this paragraph isn’t really about her, so we shift right back to Azalea, but while I can appreciate how she briefly addresses the leak of her nude photos earlier this year and takes control of the situation, her lyrics still suck, and her delivery of said lyrics is an embarrassment for the culture. There need to be more female rappers in the game, and I mean of all races, religions, and creeds. But we don’t need Iggy Azalea. Maybe if she marries a wealthy old fuck she’ll feel the need to retire for good.


FRENCH MONTANA

What I wrote before: “...The music is most certainly better than the artist here...”

Song I listened to this time around: "Slide” (featuring Blueface and Lil Tjay)

At the time of this writing, French Montana has been in the hospital for nearly a week for unknown causes, but if you’re reading this sentence, he obviously recovered enough, or else I would feel bad running this critique. “Slide” is terrible: this song is Frenchy’s attempt at trying to get everyone in the club to perform a singular choreographed dance, but the instrumental (credited to Ashton Vines, Mixx, and Montana himself) isn’t catchy enough for anyone to take the very unsubtle hints levied during the hook, which seems to recur every four bars, far too often for there to be an actual song here. So the beat is bad, the guests are somehow worse (Blueface does his Blueface thing where he slips around the instrumental like a lubed-up eel, while Lil Tjay’s crooning sounds like that of literally everyone else on the radio), and yet “Slide” isn’t a complete waste of time, all thanks to French Montana himself, whose lyrics aren’t very inspired (there aren’t many different ways one can instruct someone to “Slide”), but he’s having fun with this song, whether it’s the ridiculous segment midway through where the instrumental suddenly switches to, of all things, Snoop Doggy Dogg’s “Serial Killa”, at which point Montana starts rhyming again like he cares a little, or the music video, which makes pretty good use of its gigantic Dia de los Muertos sugar skulls and Dick Tracy suits. Here’s the problem, however: the most memorable aspects of “Slide” are in the video, which is entertaining even with the sound turned off, and the part of the song where the beat switches to an infinitely more engaging Dr. Dre prescription for no reason. Which means that French Montana is great at entertaining the listener, but not so good at the actual performance of it all. Always a good sign for a rap artist.

-Max


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