I haven’t reviewed many hip hop albums this year. In fact, I haven’t reviewed many albums full-stop. So, here’s a three-album-in-one review to make up for it.
Gen Z rappers
haven’t been doing it for me lately. I’m tired of Ice Spice’s poop bars and ass
anthems. Trying to translate Yeat’s garbled bars makes my head hurt. And who the fuck is Ian?
Having accepted I’m an out-of-touch millennial, I’ve decided it’s best to stick to listening to the millennial rappers that I know and love. Vince, Denzel and Peggy are three examples who I can always rely on – they consistently put out great albums year after year. I’d even go so far as to call them the most consistent rappers in the game (throw in Kendrick too). But has their streak finally come to an end?
West Coast
rapper, Vince Staples, shows no sign of stumbling. Thematically, his sixth
album might be his best work to date. On the surface, it seems to be a very
gloomy album. It’s titled Dark Times, the artwork is literally pitch
black and the opening track ‘Close Your Eyes And Swing’ kicks of the album with
what appears to be a lynching reference: ‘To live is to be, like the n***a
in the tree’.
But in fact
this album is cleverly all about interpretation, and the search for light in
the dark. As he raps on ‘Little Homies’, ‘One man once said life is what you
make it/ most n****s don’t make shit’. It’s one of many bars on this album
that’s deliberately ambiguous: gloomy or hopeful, depending on how you look at it.
Who’s to say ‘Close Your Eyes and Swing’ isn’t describing a happy kid on a
swing? Even the ‘dark’ in the title ‘Dark Times’ could merely be a reference to
race rather than evil.
I’m not a big fan of the rambling outro from Santigold, but it ties this album together as best as it can with the line ‘we are killing each other and being horrible and dark and beautiful and light at the same time’. It’s an album that challenges the listener to recognise the good and the bad in this world. For those who just care about the music, there are meanwhile plenty of hooky choruses on this record, and the production is pretty decent (it’s not Big Fish Theory level, but it’s got it’s interesting moments like the ghostly ‘ooooohs’ at the end of ‘Shame On The Devil’ and the melancholy piano chords of ‘Nothing Matters’). Overall, it’s a thinking man’s hip hop record – but one with it’s fair share of sticky melodies.
King of
Mischievous South Vol 2
on the other hand is not a thinking man’s hip hop record. While the
Florida rapper may have proved he can serve up witty and introspective bars on past
projects like Ta13oo and Melt My Eyez See Your Future, this new
album sees him rapping intentionally ignant shit over Three-6-Mafia-style
Memphis rap beats. He doesn’t quite dumb things down to Ice Spice’s level. There
are no poop bars. However, there is a bar about smelling like a golden shower.
So we’re almost on that level.
Like Zuu,
the focus is on delivering bangers. It’s just a shame that they don’t all bang.
Denzel is definitely rapping with energy on this mixtape. However, I found
myself zoning out after the first few tracks – not just because of how
unmemorable the lyrics are (golden shower bar aside), but because of just how
bland the beats are, which is unheard of on a Denzel Curry album.
Fortunately, the album does pick up once we reach ‘Lunatic Interlude’. The craziest beat on the album is for some reason is reserved for this 39 second filler track. After this, the tone shifts, and the bangers come hard and fast. The bassline on ‘Sked’ is filthy. ‘Wishlist’ creatively rhymes ‘coliseums’ with ‘how I see em’. And ‘Hit The Floor’ features some ballistic bars from Ski Mask and the most blown-out bass I’ve heard all year. So, yeah, a rough start, but a strong finish.
Both Vince
and Denzel just so happen to make guest appearances on JPEGMAFIA’s new album, I
Lay Down My Life For You, which I think may be my favourite of the three
albums reviewed here. The Baltimore rapper continues to push forward his jittery
and experimental style of hip hop – this time incorporating more distorted
guitars and growls, making this the closest we’ve come to a Peggy metal album.
It's a
typically challenging listen that’s more likely to scare the hoes than Scaring The Hoes did. When he’s not throwing dissonant metal guitars into the mix
as on the wonderfully-titled ‘I scream this in the mirror before I interact
with anyone’, he’s digging up obscure and noisy Brazilian funk tracks to sample
on tracks like ‘it’s dark and hell is hot’. And yet he sprinkles in just enough accessible
melodies and grooves to hold it all together. For example, sixth track ‘don’t
rely on other men’ deprives the listener of any hint of melody until the 2
minute mark when it break into an euphoric guitar and strings passage (better
than the single version!).
Rapping-wise,
Peggy isn’t doing much new on this album, but his confrontational and provocative
bars continue to be fun. ‘JPEGULTRA!’ features some particularly passionate
rapping, while also featuring a vibrant guest verse from Denzel Curry (why is he
not rapping like this on his own album?). There is one surprising track on this
album – the closer ‘I recovered from this’, which displays a rare vulnerable
side as he looks back at a failed past relationship. It’s a side of Peggy that
I’d like to see him lean more into.
So, have all three rappers kept up their streak? Vince is definitely on top form on Dark Times, and I Lay Down My Life For You is another strong album from JPEGmafia. Denzel however is slacking – the second half of King of Mischievous South Vol 2 slaps, but it can’t make up for the dull first half. Still, I’ll take it over all the Gen Z slop (Christ, I sound like an old man).
Dark Times by Vince Staples: ★★★★☆