Metro Zu – Mink Rug (2012) [Self-Released] // Grade: B

The first thing I noticed about Florida group Metro Zu’s newest mixtape Mink Rug is it’s cover. Two chicks making out something fierce. It’s pretty hard not to notice that. And like the cover suggests, this is a mixtape full of sex raps. No, not every song on Mink Rug is about sex, just most. And, truthfully that’s not a bad thing in the slightest given the talent behind it and the fact that’s going through the Raider Klan’s nostalgic/futuristic filter.

Metro Zu’s two emcees Ruben Slikk and Lofty are super witty, creative and hilarious guys so they pull off the “dirty rap” thing great. Their swag is awesome because you can really hear the fun the dudes are having rapping. The third member of Metro Zu is the producer Mr. B whose beats are pretty diverse from track to track. Some are very solid southern trap beats, some are soulful more “hip hop” and some are straight electro dance jams.

An example of the varying sounds on this mixtape happens right away in the difference between track one and two. The tape opens with one of the tape’s most trap-sounding songs “Sell Ma Ho” which sounds almost like a Future song minus the autotune. It has the pretty funny nonsensical hook “First thing first Imma sell my ho…second thing first: Imma sell my ho.” I don’t’ know exactly why I find that funny. I think it’s because they say “Second thing first.”

The next song is the title track (and probably the mixtape’s best song) “Mink Rug” produced by freebase and featuring SpaceGhostPurrp. The “Mink Rug” beat is like a throwback to oldschool UGK. The hook/concept of the song is ridiculous just like most of this tape’s tracks “Bitch, sit on my mink.” What I see is a 70s porn going down. The hilarious porn imagery Metro Zu and SGP conjure up of having sex party with “four bad bitches” on a mink Rug is great. Plus, the song is phonky as hell.

Later in the tape we get “RobotSlorBetch” which is like the sort of track LMFAO would make if they weren’t solely trying to court 14 year olds. It’s a pretty goofy electro party song, but unlike LMFAO it isn’t obnoxious in trying to be a bar mitzvah hit. Also: One of the first lines of the song is “this goes out to my Android 18s.” I’m a Dragonball Z fan, we’ll leave it at that.

The tape’s last track “C.O.D” is another track that walks the line between being humerous and serious and again pulls it off really well. With a title referencing Call of Duty and a chaotic epic, swirling orchestra beat featuring gunshot noises, I would expect this to be a song about shooting people. But nope. The hook is “Cocked back, target locked I’m bust to bust a nut up on her crotch.” So, I guess it is about shooting per say…

Mink Rug is mostly fun raps and cool beats. But, to me, that’s good hip hop and  a bit of  a lost art form in the scene. I’m sure Uncle Luke would be very proud to see these guys carrying his torch for Florida.

Download Metro Zu’s Mink Rug (Click Here)

After two years, a fame increase of about 1000%, a few false starts, a few million dollars, some controversy, some investigative journalism, profiles in the nations largest publications, feuds with his mother, conspiracy theories, twitter campaigns and more, the mysterious Earl Sweatshirt appears to have finally emerged from Samoan Boarding School (or wherever he was) and is ready to start rapping again. In fact, he’s already started.

Starting with the video above and followed quickly by Twitter and tumblr pages, Earl announced his return to the world. Sure looks like him in the video, and definitely sounds like him in the song playing behind it, “Home.” Speaking of which, Earl promised to release the track when he got 50,000 followers. Quickly jumping well above that, he dropped the predictably lyrically dense track here. New Earl Sweatshirt song! For real! Tyler recently specifically announced, seemingly out of nowhere, that Earl would not be on the new OF tape, which especially now probably means that he is. So there you have it. 2 years of trying to #FreeEarl, finally over. Yay us.

Yarrow Slaps is a hustler for sure. He’s been blessin me with plenty links lately, and the more I peep the more I like. Dude is just a guy alive in life makin raps. He paints pictures, like with paint. Although I don’t have much qualification to speak on visual art, I’d say much like his raps, his paintings lean towards impressionism. Most rap is impressionist. It gives you a vibe to experience. Of course details and stories are peppered throughout, but I’d say one of the most common types of rap to find is probably impressionist rap. But it’s not like there’s a reason to call it that. It makes more sense to just call it rap.

So call it rap we do. And it feels like right now there is a new rap album coming out every three days, and I find out about at least one new group or artist a week. It’s a great time for music in the United States, and one result of this wild proliferation is an incredible diversification. It’s great to look around and see so many different kinds of artists putting out incredibly developed work, and understanding how to present themselves. Or, understanding how not to present themselves. That certainly seems more accurate. It feels like a new sound emerges at every turn. And it’s not just some halfway facade that unfolds into a trite and predictable album beyond cursory listening. With the proliferation of the tools, and the demystification of the means of distribution, music is revealing itself to be intertwined with the lives we live as young Americans. And not intertwined in the ways we previously understood it to be. In fact intertwined is not so accurate. Interwoven would me more accurate because you cannot create the fabric of our reality without the fibers of music. Be it music that we create, or music that we listen to, our generation’s relationship to music is much deeper than we’ve yet recognized.

We know that Rap is one of the chief dialects, but all of the sudden we have found ways to understand rap dialects at a much smaller and more personal level. All of the sudden rappers don’t have to speak in pre-ordained dialects. They’re free to reveal their own. In the midst of rappers speaking freely, these dudes Dior Sentai from Orlando hit me up. Oddly enough I wasn’t surprised by what I heard on their debut Raw Cartoons, but it was on no account of the music. Their sound is an odd amalgam of anime soundtracks, post-OF (kinda nuts that this is aready happening) malevolence, and tumblr distilled Three 6 Mafia. That wasn’t the expected part, that was the unexpected part. They really own the sound, and while they’ve definitely got some work to do they’re off to a great start. The expected part of Dior Sentai actually came on account of geography, and not the music itself.

Orlando was where I went to college, and where I started rapping. I was fortunate to be in a vibrant scene that actually was not too dissimilar from what’s happening at a national scale on the internet. And as soon as I turned on Dior Sentai I could hear all the same things I used to experience at weeklies, and shows, and cyphers. It reminded me of all the time I spent not just recording, or playing shows, but living amongst a community of amazing artists. I’m grateful that the internet has given a lot of that to me in new ways, but some of it just can’t happen over computers. So on that note, next Monday is going to be the first installment of Slap City, a weekly hip hop party at SOM in SF. There will be more info to come shortly, but for now just know that the Wave is about to hit the Bay, and you should too!

Last Friday night we partied hearty at Santos Party House with Bad Rabbits, Party Supplies, and World’s Fair. Where you there? Aw, you weren’t. Unlucky duck you. Don’t worry. We captured that shit for perpetuity. Or at least some other people did. We were too busy dancing and imbibing and generally making merriment.

Shouts to Forthethrill for the photos, the rest of which you can see on there site here. As you can see, everyone had a great time and Action Bronson was there and rapping happened and then some funk n stuff too. For more rapping, check out a video of World’s Fair performing their track “Float” as captured by Brook Bobbins. Thanks everyone for a great time!

This kid is only 15 years old? Smdh. I should just retire and find some fucking tweenager to bankroll my life with all the money/talent they are most likely getting/having. Remember when it was crazy that Prodigy was 19 on “Shook Ones Pt. II”? Motherfucker would be ancient in the rap game today! Infants out in the streets, rapping about mobiles and not being to put food in their mouths correctly.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, Haleek Maul. This youngin outta Brooklyn is real fresh on the scene, and just dropped his first video for track “Fraulein”. This presumably troubled teen goes in  hard n brooding (pause) on some dark themes, just like kids in the nineties. Which is how it should be. It’s pretty dope. Maul also has a freestyle over a Clams beat on his Soundcloud. Expect more good things from this kid soon.

Gucci Mane (Born 1980)

Vs.

Waka Flocka Flame (Born 1986)

Battle Brick Squad, begin! Inspired by the release of Gucci’s quite good new mixtape Trap Back, I revisited my thoughts on which of these two friends, compatriots, innovators, goobers, was truly the best rapper. For a while there it was Waka no doubt, but many forget that there was a point where Gucci was blowing him out of the water pretty heavy too. Plus, they teamed up to pretty great effect on Ferrari Boys. This ain’t as easy as it seems.

Radric “Gucci Mane” Davis unexpectedly snagged a slice of the hip hop zeitgeist for a period about two years ago, doing a strange impossible-to-pin-down highbrow lowbrow rap thing that was utterly unique. One of the first signees to his 1017 Brick Squad crew was excitable dread shaking pretty mofo Waka Flocka Flame, who once again surprised the rap game by being totally great despite mainly just yelling his name a lot. I love them both. But which do you love more? You know how this works. Choice Is Yours…

White Flame? Pshhh that’s so last week. Now it’s all about Lil B‘s new mixtape, God’s Father. Oh what, you hadn’t heard? The man never stops! He’s already dropped a video for the first track of that soon to be released mixtape, “I Own Swag”, in which Lil B goes in surprisingly hard over a David Banner beat. It actually seems like he might have sat down and wrote this one, even attempting some internal rhymes and stuff. I like it.

Some more good things about this video. There is a quote over black at the beginning of it: “Lil B is one of the most revolutionary artists in music, all he has to do is walk and they follow.” Very true, especially considering the quote is attributed to, yup, Lil B. He also wears earrings, but like ones that hang. Appears to be hanging out with 12-15 year old skater kids. Says “so don’t ever ever speak on Lil B or you might get your ass ate through the back, no ho- I mean, no Pope, no Pope.” I love this man! No pope.

I did not see this coming. Part time rapper full time lunatic Gucci Mane released a new mixtape, Trap Back, over the weekend and it’s actually pretty fucking good. Don’t get me wrong, Gucci was my main dude for a minute there, but I don’t think anyone would say he hasn’t been in a period of fallow lately, to put it lightly. Whether it be from drug addiction, stress from repeated incarcerations, laziness, or, y’know, legitimate and troubling mental illness, Gucci was off his game. The much maligned (though, I mean, it’s lower mediocre, not a travesty) BAYTL was probably the nadir.

Somehow, he was also sitting on Trap Back, which is a total gem. First off it’s got great production (Zaytoven, Lex Luger, Drumma Boy, and especially Mike Will who brings it hard as fuck) plus ill features from Future, 2 Chainz, Flocka and more. But the real star is actually Gucci. He sounds legitimately engaged, and though he’s not quite up to his highest highs (I’m gonna assume that will probable never happen) this is more than enough for me. I’m real happy about this, the utter fall of Gucci was pretty sad. Claw back homie!

Download Gucci Mane’s Trap Back (Click Here)

Zelooperz – Coon ‘N the Room (2011) [Self-Released] // Grade: B+

First dude to randomly hit me up on twitter and impress me. I played the first song ont he album not knowing what to expect at all, and heard a dude that was kinda like Childish Gambino, then it hits the 50 second mark and dude’s true self comes out. Coon ‘N the Room is testament album. It’s “don’t look back raps”. This is what it sounds like when a young man in America intertwines his life with his music, and goes for broke. I dont’ know Zelooperz too well, but given the sound of his music I’d guess he’s a somewhat frustrated dude. It’s not a difficult feat in 2012 as a young man. The previous generation had a path that isn’t available to us, but we’re expected to outperform them. We’re expected to live lives filled with leaping bounds, but we all got prescribed cement shoes. So, instead of soaring through the clouds of American personal achievement a dude like Zelooperz gives us Coon ‘N the Room: 17 tracks of cement shoes kickin’ holes in the walls and smashin’ wack rappers’ faces to smithereens.

For a dude this young (he’s 18) what would you expect of him if he were, say working at a Best Buy? Would you expect him to be working on the floor? In the stockroom? At a register? Managing a department? Working with the geek squad? Based on what I heard on here dude is much more like regional management. The homie Catf1sh likened him to Big Sean. I can hear that. There is a similarity to the intonation, and the syncopations of Ze’s flow and Big Sean’s. But Big Sean is more like a commercial for a Maybach that you’re supposed to watch in awe (not happening), while Zelooperz is a dude whippin’ a C43 AMG and inviting you along for the ride. The thing they have in common is the thing that Ze does way better than Sean. Without trying, duh. He’s a natural.

Say you had a chef who made amazing Indo-Mexican fusion food. And that chef had an Indian dad, and a Mexican mom it would be pretty obvious where the inspiration for the crazy fusion food came from. But, with rap the constellation of influencers is still too diffused to even begin to see it. So, for a dude like Zelooperz who is very obviously blessed with a gift for rapping, where do you look to understand it? I don’t know. I’d like to think that one day I’ll have a better explanation for this stuff, but for now the explanation is all in the music. I’d suggest you take the time to really listen to what dude is saying, and try to figure out why he’s saying as well as what he’s telling us. It’s very obvious that the mind behind this stuff is both complex and observant. And so it’s no surprise that the music that comes out is both nuanced and forceful. Zelooperz understands how to flip back and forth between styles and not only paint a picture, but fill the room with movement. Keep a very, very close eye on this dude because he has everything he needs to do everything he wants, and he’s very very driven.

The video for Labba’s “Magazine” is from late last year, but it feels like it came from a Flatbush block party circa ’94. With Labba and Elephant Trunk rapping in patois over a beat that dreads and corner boys alike could rock, you end up with a song that perfectly represents Flatbush’s trademark mixing of Black American and Caribbean culture.

It doesn’t hurt that Labba kinda looks a slimmed down 2.0 version of Biggie chillin’ on the corner in the “Juicy” video. Now if the clip just featured someone getting jumped for talking reckless to someone’s girl it would perfectly encapsulate the experience of being at a mid nineties block party.