Roc Marciano – Extraordinary Nobodies

The Rewind – November 2019

The Rewind

I said in my last piece that I no longer want to write reviews, but I do still want to speak on some albums that came out in November 2019, a month I felt was fairly stacked. So instead, I wrote relatively quick recaps of them and stuffed everything together. No quantifying grades or ratings – just scattered thoughts with a varying amount of relevance to the project at hand.

MSM2 highlyrecommended

Daniel Son & Futurewave – Moonshine Mix 2 [Brown Bag Money]

Moonshine Mix 2 is the second record that Daniel Son & Futurewave have dropped this year, coming after this summer’s Yenaldooshi. Yenaldooshi was a bit different from what you’d expect from these guys, though it was still another strong addition to an essentially flawless run of collaborative albums. It had eerier production and excessively aggressive vocals, even compared to Daniel’s already confrontational delivery. With that said, Moonshine Mix 2 sees Daniel Son & Futurewave going straight back to basics.

The first tape was produced by Crate Divizion’s Vic Grimes and Phyba Optikz, both of whom are vastly different from Futurewave stylistically. I wasn’t sure what his approach would be, but I was sure he’d deliver (spoiler alert: he did). To me, it sounds like he went for samples that were reminiscent of the original but flipped them in his own way to make them feel like beats you might hear on his previous albums with Daniel Son. It was a really clever way to find a middle ground between staying faithful to the first tape while also giving us trademark Futurewave.

I really don’t know what to say about Daniel Son that we haven’t said a thousand times before. There’s a reason why he’s one of our favorite rappers out right now. On most of this album he supplies us with more of what put him there for us. However, at some points, Daniel plays with his flow in really interesting ways that I don’t think I’ve heard him try before. On “Don’t Spill” he hits us with a double time flow out of nowhere, and on “It’s Facts” he kind of reminds me of Benny on “5 to 50”. Not only does it sound great, I appreciate hearing him take risks like this in an era where people find their comfort zones and bury their feet there.

Just like in 2018, Daniel Son & Futurewave gave us an album that sits far above most of the competition. These guys are on a hot streak that I honestly don’t see ending anytime soon.

oneofthebest highlyrecommended

Gang Starr – One Of The Best Yet [Gang Starr Enterprises]

I don’t like posthumous music. More often than not, it comes off as a cash-grab by a label or affiliate rather than an attempt at paying tribute to a fallen artist. I can honestly count the number of tasteful posthumous albums that I’ve heard on one hand. Fortunately, this is one of them.

To be fair, this isn’t entirely posthumous. Half of the group is still here, which is directly the reason why it sounds so good. It’s easy to tell that Premier put everything he had into this album. It felt like his number one priority was creating something that Guru would approve of. You can feel the love and sorrow that Premo experienced while making this album just wash over you through the production. The sage burning rituals, keeping Guru’s ashes in the studio with him, putting Guru’s son on an interlude…it all comes through in the music to make for a very touching listening experience. Guru sounds so alive on these songs – it almost makes you forget that he’s no longer here.

I give Premo endless respect for the way he handled this album. He made it feel like Guru was genuinely right there with him. I don’t think I can give any higher praise than that when it comes to a posthumous release.

wwcd

highlyrecommended

Griselda – WWCD [Griselda Records/Shady Records/Interscope Records]

This was my most anticipated album for fourth quarter 2019. I’ll admit I’ve been nervous – I didn’t want to see these guys fumble this deal. A lot of things could have gone wrong.

Fortunately, they ended up giving me EXACTLY what I’ve wanted for the last two and a half years. More, even. WWCD gave me the feeling I had when I heard FLYGOD and Reject 2 for the first time, shortly after they signed to Shady. It was that same sense of mystique and excitement about something special hitting hip hop in the face. There’s no bells or whistles on this record – and that’s the beauty of it. It was signature GxFR grimey and spooky boom bap through and through. Setting aside the quality of the music, the fact that they managed to release an album with this sound, subject matter, and even artwork through a major label with NO concessions is historic.

Daringer’s production, which is what the GxFR sound has been built on from the beginning, is usually fairly simple and almost entirely loop-driven. That isn’t always great if the loop gets grating or monotonous, which is a problem I’ve had with his production on occasion. For that reason, bringing Beat Butcha on board was honestly the best thing they could have done. To my understanding, he supplied Daringer with music to loop, which meant they could be more precise with how the beats sounded while also avoiding sample clearance issues. The results were beautiful; this had some of the best beats I’ve ever heard on a Griselda Records release.

Benny and Conway are two of the best rappers alive today. Indisputably. So of course, the rapping was excellent throughout this album. I have never once heard Benny come with a verse anything short of great, and that doesn’t change here. Conway, on the other hand, releases mixtape after mixtape, all seemingly recorded over the span of a day or two. As a result, at times he can sound complacent to me. Mind you, a complacent Conway will still tear you to shreds on a track. It looks to me like dropping an official album through a major label woke him up though, because this is potentially the best I’ve personally ever heard him. Also, I really wasn’t expecting to hear Westside Gunn rap the way he did here. To me, he’s always been more style over skill – which isn’t a bad thing at all. He really showed out here, though. His flows were tight and he sounded more dialed in than I’m used to, and I loved it.

I have no hesitation in putting this up there as one of my absolute favorite Griselda Records AND Shady Records releases. It might look like I’m overselling it, but honestly, I don’t give a fuck. This was more than worth the wait and I’m still excited about it.

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recommended

Westside Gunn – Hitler Wears Hermes VII [Griselda Records]

As is tradition, Westside Gunn released a new installment to his Hitler Wears Hermes mixtape series around Halloween. This is his second solo release of 2019, coming only a few months after FLYGOD Is An Awesome GOD. Even though this is a mixtape, it’s more developed than FIAAG, which felt like it was somewhere between an album and an EP.

Usually, the Hitler Wears Hermes tapes are Gunn’s grimiest and filthiest projects, but this tape went for a smoother, jazzier, more soulful sound. He sounds more at home on these beats than did through most of his last album, which went in a weirder and artsier direction. It seems like this mixtape was more about creating a vibe rather than hard-hitting standout tracks. Half of the songs play like interludes; they’re a minute and some change in length and are mainly driven by the instrumentals, a few repeated lines, and Gunn’s signature ad-libs. That’s not to say there aren’t a fair amount of more developed tracks here, but outside of just a handful, that’s mainly relegated to the tracks with features on them. With that in mind, what this tape has going for it is that the vibe created is really enjoyable to listen to. Hitler Wears Hermes is easily one of the better mixtape series of recent years, and this only works to strengthen that position.

ghettocowby highlyrecommended

Yelawolf – Ghetto Cowboy [Slumerican Records]

This record is Yelawolf’s first independent offering, coming less than a year after fulfilling his contract with Shady/Interscope. Apparently he had this album ready for a while, but he decided to instead give Shady an album similar to what got him signed. He re-worked his final major label release into the impressive Trunk Muzik 3 – a tasteful choice in my opinion.

Trunk Muzik 3 came off like a momentary artistic deviation for the sake of sentiment, but Ghetto Cowboy seems more like the logical next step after 2017’s Trial By Fire. This is both a progression from and improvement upon that sound. At times I’ve felt like Yela’s country rap stuff can lean a little too hard into the country side of things, but this album feels incredibly hip hop for how much country/folk influence it has. It’s mainly thanks to the production; while the instruments used sound like what you would hear in country-oriented music, the arrangement and drum patterns make it feel more hip hop than a lot of his other genre-bending work (which can feel more like someone rapping over a country music backing). The end result is a really interesting wild-west outlaw rap album. Ghetto Cowboy isn’t necessarily Yelawolf’s best record (I think Love Story holds that title, despite what I’ve said), but it’s easily his best attempt at blending genres to date.

That about wraps this up…Or it did, originally. Bonus round!

marcielago highlyrecommended

Roc Marciano – Marcielago [Marci Enterprises]

Yeah, this came out at the top of December. Fuck it.

At this point in Roc Marciano’s career, he has every reason in the world to get complacent. Rather than coast on his legacy, though, he seems like he’s hungry to remind everybody who the mastermind is behind essentially the entire style that underground east coast hip hop artists have been running with for the last few years.

There are a few staples of a Roc Marci album that you’re gonna find here. Pimp talk? Minimalistic production? Slick, laid back delivery? All present. And that’s about all that’s familiar. It feels like Marci is taking elements of his established formula and applying them to sounds he hasn’t played with before. The production on this album is actually portrayed well by the cover art. It sounds like the backing to a crime drama: chaotic and violent at times, luxurious and indulgent at others. He’s always been a cinematic artist, but rather than his typical approach of soundtracking the biopic of a street legend, he took a turn in the “Miami Vice” direction. Granted, he experimented on RR2 and Behold A Dark Horse too. That said, it feels like with each passing album it’s gotten easier for him to broaden his horizons. I can’t say whether this one is better than BADH, my favorite Marci project from last year, just yet. It definitely sounds like he’s more comfortable experimenting than ever, though.

These days, I have a hard time describing Marci’s music because of where he’s been taking it. His primary focus isn’t really on the cold, unflinching soul sample-driven boom bap that he came into prominence with anymore…and I think that’s great. He’s proving that he’s not only talented and influential, but a once-in-a-lifetime hip hop artist. People are still imitating the style he popularized years ago, and less effectively at that. Meanwhile, he’s off finding ways to innovate even further. Roc Marciano is one of the greatest of all time.

Stop

I know I didn’t cover every release last month. Some didn’t move me to speak on them (which doesn’t necessarily mean I think they’re bad), and I haven’t listened to others yet. These just happened to inspire me to write, and I wanted to extend a bit of love towards them. I’m looking to do this semi-regularly, so I’ll try to be back with another one of these in a month or two.

Album Review: Roc Marciano – Rosebudd’s Revenge 2: The Bitter Dose

by Rajin

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8.5/10

I’ve said it before, but it needs to be stated at any given opportunity. Roc Marciano is the most influential underground rapper of this era. With 2010’s Marcberg, he created an entirely new style, which he later perfected on Reloaded. Since then, we have seen rappers popping up all over the underground, drawing inspiration from Roc, particularly over the last couple of years.

Around this time last year, Roc released Rosebudd’s Revenge, one of my favorite albums of 2017. It offered the streetwise lyrics, spoken-word delivery, and minimal, sample-heavy production that listeners have come to expect and love. Overall, he stuck to his guns; he stripped the production back further, but otherwise we got what we expected. Shortly afterwards Roc announced that there would be a sequel, subtitled The Bitter Dose, which was released late last month.

It seems like the story told over both Rosebudd’s Revenge records is a before/after story. The first was littered with tales of hustling, selling drugs, and pimping; the second comes off as Roc’s life after he’s attained the wealth and power he so desired. It feels like he’s rapping from the perspective of an incredibly successful hustler after retiring and buying himself an island, living in a massive villa with money, cocaine, and a different woman in every room.

While the first installment of this series was more or less predictable (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing), The Bitter Dose is anything but. Listening to it for the first time was a fun but very confusing experience. The production (courtesy of Arch Druids, Element, and Roc himself) is drastically different from anything we’ve heard on a Roc Marciano project thus far. It’s even more stripped back than normal, which actually adds to the luxurious feeling of the album. The tone is far less cold and gritty than that of Roc’s other projects, as well. Soul samples are still the driving force behind the production, but instead of creating the typical backing for grimy street tales, Roc and co. flipped the script and used them for a sound that felt almost tropical. It felt like a jazz/soul club at a hotel resort. The samples were adapted to create a vibe that was a lot sunnier and more celebratory than I’m accustomed to – even going back to the early ‘90s, I can’t think of another instance where they’ve been utilized like this.

Given the change in tone, there are fewer chances for Roc to write the vivid stories that he’s so good at. That’s not to say he doesn’t; “Power” essentially serves as this album’s “Pray For Me” and “Kill You” is as chilling as anything he’s penned. However, he takes this chance explore his wit as a writer differently. The character he plays here allows him to write braggadocious rhymes and luxurious punchlines on a level he hasn’t done so before. This is brag rap at its peak. There’s no other album on which “Bed Spring King,” a hysterical and ridiculous yet still catchy track, could exist and still make sense to its overall narrative.

Like usual, Roc opts to keep the guest appearances to a minimum. We see longtime collaborator and friend Knowledge the Pirate, whose contributions just fuel the desire for a solo album, and Action Bronson, who drops a fairly hilarious verse. Overall, Roc’s rapping stays true to his signature style. Surprisingly, there are actually a few moments where he tries new flows out. For instance, the way he rides the beat on “The Sauce” is entirely unlike any flow he’s used thus far. While he is normally laid-back, on this track, Roc picks up the pace a bit to match the frenetic energy of the production. It’s interesting to see him adapt his style to rap a bit differently than we’re used to hearing.

If there was anything to criticize about this album, it would have to be regarding the production at some points. There are a few songs that really just consist of a 4-bar loop with nothing else going into them. Sometimes doing that works, but of course it makes the beats too repetitive at other points, such as on “Bohemian Grove.” In addition, Roc’s albums tend to have a few stellar, standout tracks each, and this album didn’t really have anything like that. To be fair, though, there were no unnecessary tracks here either, unlike his previous albums, which have a bit of filler on each. As such, in a lot of ways this is his tightest and most consistent album thus far.

This album displays Roc Marciano at his most ambitious. While it still doesn’t quite match Reloaded, arguably is magnum opus, it is without a doubt his most innovative work since Marcberg. He stuck to his strengths while doing a great job at finding a new approach to his style, now that a huge portion of the underground scene has been built around it. For that reason, it’s an exciting listen, and it’s another great entry in Roc’s already impressive catalog.

Rajin Rambles: 2017 in Review, and Beyond

by Rajin

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Fortunately, we’ve somehow managed to reach the end of 2017. Unfortunately, this means that I’m once again taking it upon myself to do what I hate to see from other people, and give my unsolicited opinion about the rap music that has come out over the course of the past 12 months.

Overall I thought this year offered a great deal of good music. As expected, Redman and Ghostface Killah did not release their oft-delayed sequel albums that I have been looking forward to for the last 2 or 3 years (there’s always next year!). Some disappointing albums were released; Shabazz Palaces released two of the most tragically underwhelming albums this year, Eminem released a seriously flawed and scatterbrained effort made even more unfortunate because it had many of his best songs in a decade and a half, and the Wu-Tang Clan compilation was full of verses completely phoned in by everyone not named Method Man or Redman. However, there were at least 25-30 projects that I enjoyed. That is far more than what I can say about last year; when reflecting on 2016 about a year ago, I struggled to think of even 10 or 15 albums.

While I loved much of what came out this year, I do feel as though there were not as many that blew me away the way Run The Jewels 3, Atrocity Exhibition, or Honor Killed The Samurai did. Brick Body Kids Still Daydream might be the only one that did that for me, but again, there were a lot of great projects released.

Hip hop, to me, seems like it’s kind of in a state of limbo at the moment, and it’s sorting itself out a bit. It doesn’t seem like the genre really knows where it wants to go. Overall, the year felt a bit directionless, just kind of dragging its feet with a lot of the trends that have been present for the last few years. It feels like people are done with them and yet are also afraid to deviate from them as well. I can’t say I’m very thrilled about the whole Soundcloud rap thing – most of these kids sound to me like they’re really half-assing this cloudy trap vibe while glamorizing mental illness. It’s not a good look.

I’m really over the idea of trap-style drums being thrown into every other beat you hear these days. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy trap music. However, I’m not a fan of what’s been going on with it for a while now. Honestly, most of what is considered trap music really doesn’t seem like it should be considered trap music in the first place. Trap music has gone from actually detailing everyday life in the trap, to basically just rapping over cloudy, moody beats with fast hi-hats behind them. I feel like it’s lost its edge, and it’s becoming very safe and sanitary.

What’s going on with trap actually reminds me of what happened to New York hip hop in the late 90s. Back when Bad Boy and Ruff Ryders gained prominence, most of the grit, dust, and ultimate spirit of the music was lost, as keyboard producers came in with overly clean synths and snares that overtook sampling. Anything that resembled the sound of east coast hip hop before this transition ended up getting relegated to the underground, and it stopped being representative of the New York sound, until now where most people wouldn’t think New York even has a discernible sound at all. Like anything, as the trap sound and style got cleaner, it started losing most of what made it so alluring in the first place. For a long time it’s become progressively more and more watered down, and I feel like this year everything has just been a haze.

Odd as it may sound, 2 Chainz is quite possibly the first rapper to release an album that felt like a proper trap album in years. Pretty Girls Like Trap Music wasn’t an album I was overly fond of, but the entire atmosphere and structure of it felt reminiscent to an early T.I. album. He experimented with the current sounds that rule trap music (and, well, hip hop and even pop as a whole) but actually performed on it in a way that stayed true to the subgenre. Aside from it having a couple of songs I did enjoy, I feel like I’ve got to respect it for that reason.

I hope that hip hop moves on from the current incarnation of trap soon. I spoke earlier this year about how hip hop is in a good place, but I think I need to rephrase. It is in a good place solely because it has proven time and time again that it is not a fad, and because experimentation has crept into it more than it has since the 80s when it first really exploded. However, as far as the prevailing trends go, I think they were necessary but the representative sound needs to move on to something else. Hip hop will lose steam quickly if the majority of what is being consumed continues to devolve. Or maybe the sound will deviate from its southern influence and something else will take its place, like with what happened to New York. All I know is that I’m really kind of tired of it. There’s only so much syrupy music you can hear before you start to feel sick.

Now with all this in mind, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that I do think there’s a growing trend in underground east coast hip hop that I’m really excited about. It seems like this new chamber rap style has been really catching on, especially this year. This style is almost like a progression of the style that we saw with the first wave of the Wu-Tang Clan, where there was a lot of soulful and orchestral samples used in production as well as very descriptive, layered, and colorful lyrics. There are several rappers and producers who deserve credit for pushing the style further, but I think the first person who crafted music in this style that really made people take notice (and please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong) was none other than Roc Marciano.

In 2010, Roc Marciano released his solo debut album Marcberg. On that album, Marci painted laid vividly detailed verses delivered with a quiet and subdued yet overtly arrogant slow flow over a very soulful, stripped down backdrop. It was a style that was unlike anything that was coming out at the time; it was luxurious yet dusty, innovative yet familiar. It was very minimal, with drums oftentimes playing a less prominent role in the production. Two years later, he would refine the style he used on this album and put out what is possibly the most important underground New York rap album of the decade thus far: Reloaded.

Reloaded is the album that has given chamber rap its foothold in the genre. Since the release of that album, you can see underground rappers begin to draw influence from what Marci was doing on that album and push it forward. Around this time, The Alchemist began working with Marci, and from there you can notice a change in his production style, evident on his beats on Sean Price’s Mic Tyson or the Albert Einstein album he did with Prodigy. He started making beats that were more minimal compared to what he was doing beforehand, almost like he was adapting what he did early in his career for Mobb Deep and stripped the style down further.

The music that has been coming out of the Griselda camp since around 2014, when Daringer came into the fold, has also followed a similar tone. Daringer is another producer who creates very minimal beats, oftentimes not adding any drums to the samples and just working with what is there already. Westside Gunn and Conway are some of the more notable rappers who have pushed this style forward, as well. While Roc Marciano innovated it, there weren’t very many rappers toying with it until Westside Gunn’s mixtapes started to drop. It appears to me that the recent explosion of this subgenre really started after Flygod came out.

Since then, in 2016 and especially 2017, there has been music, primarily out of the east coast, that perpetuates this style, aside from Roc Marciano and Griselda. Hus Kingpin, being from Hempstead, Long Island like Roc Marciano, released Cocaine Beach with Big Ghost this year that was essentially a sunny take on Marci’s very cold, wintry tone. Meyhem Lauren and DJ Muggs released Gems From The Equinox, which sounded almost like it bridged the gap between vintage Wu-Tang and the current chamber rap style. VDon and Willie the Kid released a pair of excellent chamber rap EPs this year, both of which offered the subgenre the most innovation on the production side of things that it’s seen since Daringer first molded the Griselda sound. These are all artists who are taking the luxurious vibe of mafiaso rap from the early-to-mid ‘90s, and finally spawning something bigger and worthy, as opposed to the watering down of the style that Bad Boy among others ended up being responsible for.

We also can’t forget Ka. I didn’t include him alongside the rest of these guys because while they all have more of a Raekwon vibe, Ka is more like GZA. He has very stripped back production as well, however, he kind of sounds like he developed his style in a way that is very compatible with Roc Marciano, but definitely separate from it at the same time.

At the end of the day, no matter what, there’s gonna be great music everywhere no matter what the scene looks like from the outside looking in. My sentiments from last year, about wanting a more industrial influenced sound to become the representative sound of hip hop, still apply because I still feel like it could pose as a sensible point to go from where we are now. I get the sense that there will be a fairly dry period in mainstream hip hop in the next few years before the genre is replaced with another genre as the most popular genre before a new fire is lit under it. Or not. I’m not exactly good at predicting anything. Regardless, I am really excited to see how chamber rap continues to grow, and there’s plenty that I’m looking forward to in the year to come.