(1st round match-up 19 of 27)
We are all stereotypes, so much so that someone amongst us
will start acting slightly contrarian enough – a way of separating from the
crowd but without creating alienation – and that will be so great looking to
all the sucka ass normies that pretty soon the slightly contrarian opinion is
annexed (dare I say colonized?) into a new sub-stereotype. Thus, I am a “writer”
(always use scare quotes for any dumb fucker that calls themselves a writer;
they are guaranteed fools) but also a “blogger” and also “rap music aficionado”
and really whatever any other stereotype needs to label me to either agree or
disagree with me conclusively, without regard, as quickly as possible. You see,
the important thing is to label everything and everyone, not to interact with
it. Once everything (and everyone) is labelled, then you will fully understand
all the world has to understand. Good luck on your journey, fellow idiot human.
Here is today’s expert (as in all-knowing) whiteboy (as in predominately
European heritage, but not in Europe no more) analysis (as in talking too
goddamned much about stupid shit)…
Danny Brown – OLD
(released October 8, 2013; #5 on 2013 Pitchfork Albums of
the Year list)
Danny Brown, during XXX, developed trademark Danny Brown
dichotomy of high-pitched “I’m getting fucked up and don’t really give a fuck”
style, and introspective calmer-voiced “damn, the shit I’ve seen is depressing.”
As detailed before, I enjoy the depressing half of that dichotomy a bit more,
but likely this is because I no longer get fucked up and am a depressing
motherfucker a lot of times (not to mention depressed many times as well). With
OLD, Brown begins to transfuse the two together more, to where sometimes he is
calmly talking about rubbing on someone’s breasts right before going into what
a fuckin’ hypocritical life he lives. The existential crisis is no gimmick
here, and you can tell.
But beyond this growth of the two Danny Brown styles into
one, like two birch sprouted closely together in the woods, he also realizes he
has moved along the timeline away from some of the concepts of his earlier
shit. He specifically mentions how trifling that is in “Dope Song”, how he’s
not sitting on the stoop selling drugs no more. His life has changed, although
it’s still fucked.
Don’t get it wrong though, he’s still talking about sexing
with mad art sluts. (I put “with” in there and oddly it took away the sex
shaming of it a little, because it was not being done to the art sluts, but
with the art sluts, and there can be no denying that “art slut” would encompass
one Daniel Xworth Brown as well.) But the multiple facets of DB are blending
together, and he’s also attempting to trim away some of the redundant phat that’s
starting to feel repetitive to him (an interesting thing, considering the next
album in this trio). I don’t know, I didn’t think beforehand I liked this
better than XXX, but afterwards I think I may. It’s better than I remembered,
and I actually already remembered it as worthwhile. Danny Brown talks shit, and
might grate on some folks nerves, and damn does he dress funny, but that dude
is more honest than most fuckers cosplaying images for rap industry. If there
was one rapper I’d like to see a serious documentary about (not one hyping up
new album), it’d be Danny. SIX STARS (******)!
Pusha T – My Name Is My Name
(released October 8, 2013; #50 on 2013 Pitchfork Albums of
the Year list)
It was about two-thirds of the way through this album the
first time (each joint gets played twice through, beginning to end as
manufactured creatively, in case you ain’t know how scientific my process is)
that I became completely numb to the effect of cocaine rap. It is stupid and
pointless, and the only reason people around me hype up Pusha T is because we
have nothing else that has prominently come from Virginia in hip hop, other
than bullshit pop machine stuff like Missy Elliott or Neptunes or Timbaland…
basically robot music ready-made for the mall. So Pusha T, relatively speaking,
seems legit. But fuck man, the cocaine rap shit is so… fucking… boring. I mean,
I guess I can kinda give him half a prop (not a whole one) because he was one
of the originators of that style, BUT GOD WHY DON’T YOU FUCKING RHYME ABOUT
SOMETHING ELSE? Even mix in a different drug you are pretend moving on the
streets. I don’t know, I hope it’s because he actually did have dirty hands at
one point, and has cleaned up but still feels like he has to rhyme about that
world, and is not comfortable with rapping about his new life of riding to
Starbucks and shopping for sofas and mundane shit like that. But at this point,
I’d rather hear him talk about an 40-minute drive through heavy Tidewater
traffic to get to the Haverty’s furniture to find a new living room ensemble
than more fucking cocaine rap. (The song with Kendrick briefly tricked me into
tolerating cocaine rap for about 94 seconds each time, for full disclosure.)
ONE STAR (*)!
YG – My Krazy Life
(released March 18, 2014; #27 on 2014 Pitchfork Albums of
the Year list)
YG is Compton gangsta rap, but on that new era of non-gruff
voiced style, where we finally admit that squeaky-sounding motherfuckers are
sometimes the most psychopathic, putting behind our patriarchal beliefs that
deep voice means more alpha. Maybe. YG uses the n-word a lot, like more than
even n-word heavy genre of rap music does, and as expert whiteboy, I am unable
to use the n-word in real life, naturally, and I fully accept them. I have had
best friends at times who were not expert whiteboys like not even a little you
could see it very clearly, and they would call me their n-word (lolol one time
I was introduced to Mos Def by my boy Rob as that – his n-word, which was
perhaps the most awkward moment of my life to that point), but growing up in
the rural south, riding a schoolbus where there were three white kids, and the
other two were my younger sisters, and also have legit racist family members, I
stay the fuck way from that word. But apparently I don’t even type the word
either, as this YG review has started out showing and proving, which seems
weird to me. But if I don’t say it, should I type it? Is that perpetuating
racialisms, or am I being ridiculous?
Doesn’t really matter, because this is the internet, and it’s
far more important to put forth the appearance of righteous and interpersonal
nobility than to actually do that in real life. This is all a grand theater of
personal branding except nobody is buying shit so fuck it, let’s keep
pretending. (Side note: if you still believe in any of the mythology behind
America and exceptionalism and all that hoo-ha, you are as bad as the n-word
users, but on an entirely different plain separate from education and
environment, and one built on well I don’t know… kinda started rambling too
long and forgot where I was going. But let’s pretend there’s a horrible
historical word that begins with Q, and we can’t even say it due to the history
involved. You are a fucking Q-word. I hate you.)
Oh yeah, the music… It was okay. I mean nothing
extraordinarily great but it was entertaining, and it was fun to not say the
n-word but think about how fun it would be to shoot a bunch of motherfuckers.
Also when you really break down the logistics and economics of shit like breaking
and entering (a favorite of YG, if his lyrics are true testimony), crime doesn’t
pay, like not well at all. But if it’s the only job you can get, insert shrug
emoji. THREE STARS (***)!
THE WINNER: I am someone who has had a love for drugs and self-medication
in the past, and dabbled in petty criminality, nothing major (all felonies
avoided, narrowly once or twice), so I’m down for drug-addled reflective crisis
of self, not acting like street overlord or hard as fuck. I’m not hard as fuck;
I like sitting in the back yard and just fucking loungin’, minimal drama, easy
thoughts all day long. Danny Brown is the only one of these three I think could
share a plastic Adirondack with me. YG would be chill probably, and I don’t
know, Pusha T would probably start talking about politics or how Hillary should’ve
gotten elected or some shit. I imagine he’s kind of a Q-word in real life now.
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