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.”
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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