Last week finally saw the release of Chance the Rapper's newest mixtape, Acid Rap. This is a free download that you can get right HERE. Seriously, that's all you have to do. Click on it. Now.
Chance the Rapper is a twenty year-old MC from Chicago -- I say "MC" specifically because Chance is the most entertaining new artist I have heard in quite some time. Where Kendrick focuses on the ever present dispositions toward violence being bred in certain geographic areas, Chance explores the same subject matter but in a much more enjoyable manner - there is more than one "Backseat Freestyle" you can enjoy on an album packed with an intelligent social conscience. And like Kendrick nearly perfected on his debut, there is a two movement song on Acid Rap, the seven and a half minute long "Pusha Man", though it's not as smooth a transition as Kendrick's "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst".
Being from Chicago obviously carries Kanye comparisons with it, West being the most notable Chicago artist in recent memory. Hearing Acid Rap for the first time did bring me back to the first time I heard "All Falls Down", The College Dropout. It's feel good music with an educated backbone. While fellow young Chicago rapper Chief Keef is very much a trap artist focusing on fully embracing gun violence, Chance has a much more cautious, controlled attitude toward gun violence - exhibited in the second half of "Push Man".
Acid Rap unfurls like a proper debut, much like how other growing rappers in this blog-heavy atmosphere's first notable mixtape felt big - the entire Black Hippy crew, the Pro Era kids, and ugh, Odd Future. Yeah, he is rapping about taking acid, drinking, and drugs, but it's self-conscious and incorporates crafty wordplay, awarding these songs a lot of stability and a projected longer lifespan. Ab-Soul, Action Bronson, Childish Gambino, and even Twista show up to expand the mixtape's voice and reach. And the beats are as well selected as the features are.
On all fronts, Chance the Rapper's Acid Rap kills it. This is a proper introduction to one of the most promising talents to debut in the past year that cannot be missed, seriously.
Check out the video for album single "Juice" below and download Chance's first mixtape #10Day HERE.
Yesterday saw Flatted Third reach its highest pageviews per day since I started this thing, so I thought I would continue the trend of "Seasonal Music." There are only four shifts from season to season each year; I have to take advantage of it.
This list concerns saying goodbye to summer with some of my favorite tracks from the summer of 2012. Not all of these songs have been released this year, but they certainly will remind me of this past summer. I've decided to break them up into zany, wacky, crazy, bats in the belfry categories for fun, so I hope you guys enjoy!
Wait, Is This Still Metal: Baroness - "Little Things"
Yes, I guess it is - either way, I really enjoyed this track. There is little to no distortion on the guitars, coherent lyrics, and vocal harmonies, but it is definitely still metal - I don't know how else you could classify it. When I first heard Yellow & Green, I was confounded by it. I had no idea what to make of it, drawing me closer and warranting more and more listens. Gerry even wrote an excellent article about the state of metal concerning this record. By the end of the summer I had purchased the double LP and can say with confidence it will breach my year end list somewhere around the top 25. And man, oh man, that guitar solo at the end...
That Girl/Boy Won't Stop Bothering Me - I Told Her I Was Drunk: Joyce Manor - "Constant Headache"
Yeah, I know the self-titled album came out last year, but Of All Things I Will Soon Grow Tired came out this year and that's what drew my attention to the earlier release, so I don't know, suck a brick or something - the latter Joyce Manor record was mentioned in my "Albums You May Have Missed" article. "Constant Headache" is a great one night stand song, and it will hopefully send the message to that girl or boy who keeps bothering you. Summer flings are often volatile and misguided by hormones, so make sure you use protection!
Super Sped Up Party Montage: Dan Deacon - "True Thrush"
This song is just so much fun. I reviewed America and found it Deacon's most ambitious album so far. The video is a load of fun, too, so make sure you don't just play the song and open another tab. It feels like a party in fast forward, an overload of instruments and chants flooding the ears. It's only fitting that I got the drunkest on the Fourth of July this summer and this is off of an album called America...or is that irony? I don't even know anymore.
The Best Rap Chatter: Danny Brown - "Bruiser Brigade feat. Dopehead"
This song is just straight shit-talking. I fucking love it. It's crass, hysterical, and features the best chatter in a song, maybe ever: "If you ain't pulling a nigga dick out, slapping yo' face wit' it, throwing this bitch in yo' mouth, sucking dicks with bubbles, fucking all night, and drinking protein shakes in the morning, get the fuck outta here!" I have screamed that countless times this summer. It is the perfect song to roll up to a random house party where most of you are already drunk, only because you didn't "forget the brew."
I Don't Have Any Plans, So I Think I'll Just Cruise: Das Racist - "Luv It Mayne (Featuring Fat Tony & Bo P)
With an infectious hook, excellent production and features, and the expected weird raps from Das Racist, "Luv It Mayne" is perfect to bump through your car speakers as you roll through the center of town. And the best part is screaming out "If gonna baaalllllllllooooooo" at random pedestrians - believe me, you have to try it.
Drunken Party Anthem: Chief Keef - "I Don't Like (feat. Lil' Reese)"
Let's face it, there's not much to this song. I do believe my friend thought the first thing Chief Keef doesn't like, in a litany of don't likeable things, was a "fart nigga." I don't care what he's saying because it's a lot more fun to make up what the two incoherent rappers don't like - A SHIP NIGGA THAT'S THAT SHIT I DON'T LIKE. The beat's pretty good, I guess; well, Kanye liked it enough to make a remix.
The Beach at Night, and Shit: Beach House - "Lazuli"
It's easy to pass off Beach House as the band that made the same album three times, but they're not bad albums, especially both Teen Dream and Bloom. You can practically hear the moonlight splash off the ocean in "Lazuli". I guess this song would also work as a companion on a rainy day you had beach plans on too, if you're into that sort of thing.
I Had Beach Plans, but Now It's Raining Out: Bear vs. Shark - "Baraga Embankment"
Yeah, I know it specifically says "pouring rain" in the song, but that doesn't discredit the dreary disappointment in the song. It also sounds like you were so upset your beach plans where cancelled that you lost faith and killed everyone in your house, but hey, we've all had those days, especially during the summer of 2012.
The Ninth Summer Song on This Playlist: Sonic Youth - "Plastic Sun"
The first live video, ruining what I had going on here, "Plastic Sun" is the quintessential anti-summer song. It's anything but poppy, which is perfect for those days where you want to just stay inside and brood. It's also a scathing comment on the pop acts of the early 2000s: always something I'm down to bump.
The Quintessential Anti-Summer Song: Andrew Jackson Jihad - "Hate, Rain on Me"
If you think I'm lying, then listen to the damn song. It opens with a beer cracking open and embraces hate. Sometimes, you just want to shoot the sun, ending all summer songs. And with the changing of seasons -- Emo is coming! -- it's perfect to say, "Fuck you, summer. Go away until I cannot bear the cold anymore. I'm emotional, and stuff."
So there it is: a farewell to summer. Goodbye, summer 2012, you have been nothing short of low expectations and mistakes.
You might remember a short lived show on MTV called “From G’s to Gents”. It featured a number of young men seeking to reform their umm... “urban idiosyncrasies” and become proper gentlemen. The show only lasted two seasons and didn’t prompt any spinoff’s. In fact, I’m pretty sure the show’s host, Fonzworth Bentley, went back to holding Diddy’s umbrella to pay off his Howard student loans (I’m not entirely sure he went to Howard or if that joke is racist). However, someone did emerge from this reality show a star in his own right.
Riff Raff, hailing from Houston, Texas was eliminated by the 2nd episode of season 2. But that’s all he needed. This was the perfect amount of fame needed to springboard his career. However, Riff Raff possessed a marketable “skill," unlike many reality stars who try to make a lifelong career out of what should only amount in short term fame.
It was not Riff Raff’s rapping ability which kept him relevant after his brief stint on MTV. To be completely honest, he’s rarely consistent with his verses, at times meandering through tracks like a drunk ESL student.
Riff Raff has made some waves in the music world in the past through his attempts to stay relevant.
First, he adopted his own brand of SEO. By adding “MTV” to his Youtube handle (MTVRiFFRaFF) his videos would appear in the sidebar in all of MTV’s official videos. After some of his music videos and home movies began surpassing MTV’s videos in search results, they threatened to sue and he took the tag off his username. He added SODMG (which I can’t be bothered to care with this stands for) to his Youtube and Twitter handles after reportedly signing a deal with Soulja Boy’s label. But, the deal fell through, or maybe never even existed at all. That’s the way Riff Raff rolls. He deals in deception.
More recently, he signed a 7 album deal with Mad Decent. According to some sources, which might just be Riff Raff himself, the deal was apparently worth seven figures. All parties involved, including label owner Diplo, are keeping quiet on the exact terms of the contract.
Arguably the most important trait when trying to dissect Riff Raff is his insane sense of self-awareness. Riff represents everything that was wrong with Hip-Hop by the end of the Noughties, when artists like Soulja Boy, Nelly and the Ying Yang Twins have rose and fell from fame after they had become parodies of themselves and the genre as a whole; and he knows this. Riff Raff’s rhymes hail us back to a time when braggadocio surrounding one’s wealth, whether is was truth or fiction, was commonplace in both underground and commercial rap. But, Rapping about your garage full of cars and the price of your chain is no longer en vogue in the current hip hop and economic climate.
As the underground took a turn towards the harrowing and soulful, Riff trudged through, not paying any attention to the trends adopted by his contemporaries, staying “true” to himself -- or the version of himself he created: a point debated later -- authentically inauthentic. It is this commitment to his character...for lack of a better word, which has led some to label Riff Raff as a “performance artist," rather than believe that a human like this can actually exist and accept the decline of western civilization as a whole. The idea that Riff Raff is an innovation from the mind of a pretty clever hip hop fan from Houston seeking to point out the udder fucking ridiculousness of other white southern rappers isn’t that farfetched. I think the general consensus among fans is that Riff is more of a one man Spinal Tap.
Much like the Rock and Roll invention of Rob Reiner, Riff Raff’s music is at times infectious and catchy (Riff , Tap). It’s also seems like a pretty clear parody of everything that critics use to rail against the genre as a whole during a particular period. However, at the end of the day Nigel Trufnel takes off his wig and spandex pants, puts on his pajamas, and goes to bed Christopher Guest.
But Riff Raff doesn’t sleep.
Or wear pajamas.
End rant.
Riff Raff’s debut mixtape Birth of an Icon is probably not what you might expect after reading the description of him above. Despite some of his flaws as an MC/human being, he takes his craft seriously, and there are many points on this mixtape where that shines through. Sometimes he tries to take himself too seriously or goes out on a limb, fails, but comes right back with something you can bounce to.
The mixtape starts of with the Caspa produced slow jam “Jody Highroller”, named after his soulful after ego/twitter handle/actual name. The feel of this track is in stark contrast to most of Riff’s other previously released jams, but not the last time he explores his softer side on this mixtape. There’s also “Lil Mama”, “Don’t Wait” and “Only I Can Cure Your Broken Heart” where Jody croons about some of his lost loves. The tracks are both listenable and help round out the “emotional spectrum” of the mixtape, something that Riff wants to remind everyone that he has, but there’s really nothing spectacular about them.
The other standout track on this mixtape - if only for how different it is - “Time” is Riff Raff’s chance to right the wrongs he committed on his way to the top (which is actually somewhere towards the middle, but hey, a false sense of self importance never killed anyone). This weird attempt at trying to get deep comes off as very insincere and contrived, even for a guy who still wears fronts. Also, the fact that its uses a Plain White T’s sample doesn’t help.
But if you’re willing to get on board with Riff Raff and his image, which includes his flow that can be kept up with at times he dances around the beat, there is a lot of fun to be had with this mixtape. “Jose Canseco”, “Rap Game King Tut” and “Terror Wrist” probably best sum up what I mean, and also give you the best idea Riff’s overall style. There’s a bunch of clever rhymes about ice and cars, as well as some catchy as hell hooks.
Where this mixtape really peaks for me is on all the collaborative tracks. There’s “Bird on A Wire” with Bronx based MC Action Bronson, which I would label as one of the overall strongest tracks on the album. It’s noticeably a bit smoother than some of the other songs and Bronson’s deep outer borough accent and the flavor that comes along with it makes a nice contrast to Riff’s higher pitched voice and slightly noticeable southern drawl and diction.
So, my advice is this: Pick up this mixtape and have fun with it. Keep bumping the songs you like and don’t give a second chance to the ones you can’t get into. Don’t worry, you’re not going to miss anything. There’s really not much to be gained by a second critical listen to Birth of an Icon. There’s nothing deeper hiding beneath the surface of any of these tracks.
But I don’t know if I can say the same for Riff Raff.
