I find the smart markery of GOATdom proclamations annoying as fuck at this point. People throw GOAT around all the time, to where a local rapper with a couple notable songs in a thus far short career is hyped up with GOAT ego boosts in every social media post, even though they only left their little world a couple times, one of which was a pay-for-play SXSW scam in all likelihood. And that’s no diss to anybody chasing their dream, by any means necessary, so much as saying lolol can’t everybody be the GOAT or else you demean the superlative. But I guess we do live in a time of instant proclamation and demeaning superlatives.
My music listening process for shit on an old iphone used as music box is a slow boil. New releases come out, and might not even get into the mix for a month or more, so I’m always behind the curve of saying, “Wow! This new XYZ album is definite Album of the Year!” I might not listen to that shit until next year. And being from Virginia, where ain’t shit to do but, well, fuck around on the internet like everywhere else at this point to be honest, when Pusha T drops a new project, it registers, even on my old contrarian head radar. So the songs slowly started making it into the old iphone in the car. This ended up being my favorite song (so far), but it’s not like it’s anything groundbreaking or amazing. It’s good though.
Calling constant GOATification a smart mark act is fitting, because fuck man, everything is like pro wrestling nowadays in the performative digital world we have had manufactured around us while we were standing still for too long. There’s a nostalgia to albums by folks with long-term hip hop careers like Pusha, so people always overhype them as being way greater than they likely are. It’s a lot like seeing a former WWE superstar wrestling at the state fair for some local indy promotion, and folks mark the fuck out for seeing the former Intercontinental Champion who main evented Wrestlemania one time, right in front of their eyes again. But ol’ boy ain’t hitting like he used to, or he’s just going through those things you remember from back in his prime. Sometimes it actually is still good, but a lot of times it’s just mimicking old shit, and something’s missing completely.
Most of the time, it’s not just individual effort that creates those shining moments though – there’s the wrestler you were working with, the environment at the time, how you were coached to pace yourself and how much time you were given to do what you do. So it’s interesting to me in actually looking up the album notes to Pusha’s latest, that Pharrell produced a bunch of it (and most of the songs I enjoyed), including this track. Neptunes’ production helped create a sparse but engaging foundation for Clipse’s prime, and Pusha’s whole delivery is built off flexing on that type of beat. To be honest, I kinda hate Pharrell as a whole, because I guess I resent Virginia’s hip hop reputation being so pop-oriented, due to his influence (and Timbaland too, I guess). But the man has been involved on some absolute bangers, and knows how to get grimy with his fruity loops. So this song worked well, not as some groundbreaking new era shit that sets a new aura and aesthetic for music that I’m gonna say is Album of the Year like some stupid fucking mark. But it’s a great song, like going to the state fair and seeing wrestling and like two dudes who used to be on cable TV twenty years ago every Monday night have a match and they absolutely nail the magic for three minutes, even though they used to be able to go an hour. It’s great for what it is, and that’s just as necessary, because our whole life can’t be GOAT shit, or else GOAT means nothing.
My music listening process for shit on an old iphone used as music box is a slow boil. New releases come out, and might not even get into the mix for a month or more, so I’m always behind the curve of saying, “Wow! This new XYZ album is definite Album of the Year!” I might not listen to that shit until next year. And being from Virginia, where ain’t shit to do but, well, fuck around on the internet like everywhere else at this point to be honest, when Pusha T drops a new project, it registers, even on my old contrarian head radar. So the songs slowly started making it into the old iphone in the car. This ended up being my favorite song (so far), but it’s not like it’s anything groundbreaking or amazing. It’s good though.
Calling constant GOATification a smart mark act is fitting, because fuck man, everything is like pro wrestling nowadays in the performative digital world we have had manufactured around us while we were standing still for too long. There’s a nostalgia to albums by folks with long-term hip hop careers like Pusha, so people always overhype them as being way greater than they likely are. It’s a lot like seeing a former WWE superstar wrestling at the state fair for some local indy promotion, and folks mark the fuck out for seeing the former Intercontinental Champion who main evented Wrestlemania one time, right in front of their eyes again. But ol’ boy ain’t hitting like he used to, or he’s just going through those things you remember from back in his prime. Sometimes it actually is still good, but a lot of times it’s just mimicking old shit, and something’s missing completely.
Most of the time, it’s not just individual effort that creates those shining moments though – there’s the wrestler you were working with, the environment at the time, how you were coached to pace yourself and how much time you were given to do what you do. So it’s interesting to me in actually looking up the album notes to Pusha’s latest, that Pharrell produced a bunch of it (and most of the songs I enjoyed), including this track. Neptunes’ production helped create a sparse but engaging foundation for Clipse’s prime, and Pusha’s whole delivery is built off flexing on that type of beat. To be honest, I kinda hate Pharrell as a whole, because I guess I resent Virginia’s hip hop reputation being so pop-oriented, due to his influence (and Timbaland too, I guess). But the man has been involved on some absolute bangers, and knows how to get grimy with his fruity loops. So this song worked well, not as some groundbreaking new era shit that sets a new aura and aesthetic for music that I’m gonna say is Album of the Year like some stupid fucking mark. But it’s a great song, like going to the state fair and seeing wrestling and like two dudes who used to be on cable TV twenty years ago every Monday night have a match and they absolutely nail the magic for three minutes, even though they used to be able to go an hour. It’s great for what it is, and that’s just as necessary, because our whole life can’t be GOAT shit, or else GOAT means nothing.
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