(1st round match-up 26 of 27)
I listened to all these albums like a month ago, finished
the listening process, so am having to revisit to write about, which is
entirely unnecessary, but the digital spotlight we self-publish allows us to
pretend our words are preserved like ancient Alexandrian library (which was
burned, for the record). Complete curation of data including opinions,
self-snitches, and every regrettable decision in its entirety, to be compressed
and analyzed by programs since it’s too time-consuming (IRL) to review it
closely. Thus I continue down this wasted road, for no other reason than I
began to listen to Screw tapes to do a similar project, and if I don’t wrap
this one up first, I will make myself feel bad, because creative self-guilt is
my biggest motivator (or obstacle, depending on the brain chemistries) in life…
YG- Still Brazy
(released June 17, 2016; #22 on 2016 Pitchfork Albums of the Year list)
YG is somewhat sociopathic, but that enjoyable low stakes
sociopath. He’s not Rick Rossing up his metaphors, still content to break and
enter houses for jewelry or shoot dudes on the corner a few blocks over. I can
respect that. Not everybody wants to become King; many of us are content to be
foot soldiers. There’s great honor (even in criminality) in being a good solid
foot soldier. Civilization was perhaps designed by architects, but it was a
bunch of simple fucks (often enslaved, physically or psychologically like now)
who moved all the stones into place. Because of all this I enjoy YG more than I
should (despite an exuberant abundance of n-wording, which causes ya boy the
dirtgod as an expert whiteboy to have to check the volume at the stoplight
sometimes, if I give a fuck, which unfortunately sometimes I do probably
because I wear too many shirts with buttons nowadays), because I ain’t
expecting shit but pure sensual vice. And though I prefer YG’s other earlier CD
to this one (“Bool, Balm & Bollective” not as bool after you already heard “Bicken
Back Bein’ Bool”), his entire aura feels more like Eazy Duz It than any other
Compton rapper has ever felt, back to that pre-gangsta rap exposed to the world
innocence of being content to commit small felonies instead of trying to take
over the world and then get shot in Las Vegas in a luxury vehicle after a high
profile fight. YG still seems content to get shot at the Greyhound Station in
Las Vegas, and no shit I really fucking respect that. THREE STARS (***)!
ScHoolboy Q – Blank
Face
(released July 8, 2016; #38 on 2016 Pitchfork Albums of the Year list)
When Schoolboy Q hits his top stride, and cuts through the
opioid fog with dark reflections on immediate life as well as larger universe,
that shit is great. He does it so well that I’ve always held out hope for him
to drop the straight classic, a full-on banger to sit alongside the critical
shelves holding his TDE podna Kendrick Lamar’s discography. And Q is always
good at teasing at this, but for whatever reason never delivers. The tease has
been enough to trick gullible motherfucks into giving him critical positivity
(aka Pitchfork), but he hasn’t delivered like you’d want. Those gentrifying ass
bitches are hydrocodone newbies who think they’re blasted beyond belief
momentarily because their tolerance is too low to be authentic. Q hasn’t delivered
that full-on banger yet (closest he came was Habits & Contradictions), and
he knows it. He’s got all the ingredients, all the potential, but has missed a
couple times now, and eventually gonna run out of opportunities. He probably
would’ve already if he wasn’t labelmates with Lamar, getting lines of credit
extended by proxy. Then again, Q hasn’t gotten nearly as atrocious as Ab-Soul,
and that motherfucker still making records too, so I don’t know, maybe it doesn’t
even matter any more. THREE STARS (***)!
Noname – Telefone
(released July 31, 2016; #27 on 2016 Pitchfork Albums of the Year list)
The entirety of my familiarity with Noname was assuming she
was the feature I dug on Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap mixtape, which the cover
of Telefone seemed to confirm. So I expected that I’d like this, but maybe not
ever bump it again. I guess that ended up being true, but I got bored before I
was done listening to it the two times required by internal protocols, although
there was nothing obvious to make me dislike it. So I did this thing I do where
I think “Oh my kids will like this, so I’ll refer them to it,” as if music
gives a fuck if somebody in my house cares about it or not. I don’t know, maybe
it does, maybe every object or creation has spirit and wants to spread its
psychic seed as far and wide as possible. I’m kinda stuck in this material
realm, and one that humanity has narrowly defined by science, so I don’t feel
comfortable speculating beyond what I pretend to know. But the suggestion to
the kids didn’t take, so the Noname digital files of music are being neglected.
I guess the damage is not as bad as it would’ve been with an actual physical
album, but again I don’t know for sure. But Noname found no home in our little
rural compound of chaos. TWO STARS (**).
THE WINNER: My
whole star self-limitation creates a fallacy here, as YG is definitely way
better than Schoolboy Q on these albums, but the star system makes them appear
to be equal. And I guess from the long view, they’re pretty close – L.A.
gangsterism in 21st century fog world. But YG still appears to be having upward
trajectory as artist, while Schoolboy Q seems to have levelled off, and maybe
not going no higher as artist. None of this really matters though because
likely the biggest issue for both is paying their bills, so hopefully they both
are. Fuck capitalism.
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