Post-Danksgiving Edition

Oh, how I missed you, Cheeseheads! How've you been? How was your Thanksgiving? Did you eat a lot of food? Maybe watch some football? Did you participate in Danksgiving? How about Black Friday? Did you get a TV or Blu-ray player? Aww man, it's really great to catch up with you guys. I missed y'all a lot.

Because I was not aware that the last post would be my last before Thanksgiving, I forgot to let you all know how thankful I am for you. So instead, I'll show you with a kick-ass new post! Because I missed a week, I've compiled the most memorable mixtapes from the past two weeks to guarantee a good time.

The Good:

Action Bronson - Rare Chandeliers

(Before I start introducing and reviewing this mixtape, can we just take time to marvel at the awesomeness of this cover?)

You may not have heard of Action Bronson. He hasn't quite hit it big yet, but he's garnered a pretty decent following from underground hip-hop lovers.

And truthfully, I haven't given him much of a look myself. I've listened to a couple of his songs, but none of them really stuck with me, so I never downloaded anything by him. Before Rare Chandeliers, the only Action Bronson I had was his feature on Domo Genesis & Alchemist's latest project.

But I've said it before and I'll say it again: that's the beauty of mixtapes. (What did you expect? It's a blog dedicated to nothing but mixtapes.) And I can say after listening to Rare Chandeliers that Bronson is officially stuck with me.

Bronson kind of reminds me of Rick Ross. He's big, gritty, has the facial hair of a butcher (fun fact: Bronson used to be a gourmet chef, so the facial hair makes sense) and is extremely intimidating. The only difference is, you know, Bronson is good.

He has tremendous flow and good lyrics. "Blood of the Goat" is filled with examples. With a chorus of "Do, I'm liftin' you / Off your feet like my daughter at the park / Don't cross the border 'cause it's slaughter after dark," you know the song will have plenty of intimidating lines.

The Alchemist creates beats that go hand-in-hand with Bronson's hard-ass persona. The free album has an old-timey gangster feel, with electric guitars, plenty of horns and the kind of bass that you can't duplicate through an electric beat maker.

And there's a couple great features that take Rare Chandeliers to the next level, such as Schoolboy Q and Roc Marciano ("I laughed as the hardest pussy farted.")

Action Bronson gives his old fans new music to listen to and his new fans a reason to continue to listen.

The Bad:

B.o.B - Fuck Em We Ball

I've mentioned before how I prefer mixtape B.o.B to album B.o.B. And I've developed a theory about it: there are two B.o.Bs.

Okay, maybe this isn't ground-breaking. He basically says it himself. The mixtape B.o.B is simply B.o.B. He's gritty, rough and a little harder around the edges. Then there's album B.o.B, also known as Bobby Ray. Bobby Ray is a bit poppier. He has glitzy tracks with high-end pop stars as features. Oh, and did I mention Bobby Ray is catchy as fuck?

Both are pretty good in their own way. But B.o.B is just better in my opinion. If you've heard "Beast Mode"off No Genre, you know how hyped he can make you. And he can also tell a story. "Dr. Aden," also off No Genre, is my favorite example.

But that was then, this is now. And now, B.o.B doesn't seem like he's as good as he used to be. It seems as if he's blended B.o.B with Bobby Ray. And not in a "best of both worlds" way, but in a clusterfuck of confusion.

There's the title track, which is about as B.o.B as it gets. It opens up with "Man I go so dumb that I should get a check for disability / I'm a fucking lunatic you a liability." And featured guest Spodee proves worthwhile ("We done laid more niggas down than a thirsty chiropractor.") But there's still that hint of Bobby Ray's pop sensibilities sprinkled throughout the track.

And then there's the downright poppy, like "Be There," which sounds like it was a reject from his last album as B.o.B mostly sings through the entire song. "I don't want to waste your time / I just want to change your life." Couldn't you just see Taylor Swift or some other pop diva singing that? Then why the hell is B.o.B singing it?

Even his features reflect how he's drifting more to the mainstream side. (See: Mac Miller, Snoop Lion, and T.I.)

Really, this album isn't a bad release, it's just a bad release for B.o.B. It's unclear whether it's one of his albums (just not as catchy), or one of his mixtapes with more pop influences. And neither of those are really B.o.B's (or Bobby Ray's) forte.

The Re-dic-yu-lus:

Yung Word - The Ride

There are very few things you need to know about me. I like piña coladas and walks in the rain, I've seen Inception way too many times and I still haven't developed a solid theory about it, and I fucking love "Mercy." If I took a shot every time I've rapped, "Drop it to the floor, make that ass shake," I would never be sober. Just watch the music video!

Pure genius! The widescreen! The black and white! Kid Cudi dancing randomly throughout the video! Kanye proves time and time again how brilliant he is as a musician, but "Mercy" is his masterpiece! (Okay, maybe not. But I love it nevertheless.)

So, I decided that if anyone were to ever mess with "Mercy" and make it less than satisfactory, I would be beyond pissed at them. They couldn't even buy my love with a picture of Ted riding on a space jet ski with a unicorn-pegasus hybrid (pegacorn, if you will) to his side.

Yung Word, if you're reading this, I'm talking about you. You took a good thing and ruined it for me! Are you happy?!

First off, Yung Word ruins the beat by adding a cheesy version of ASAP's deep voice saying, "All I do is rap" multiple times.

Then, he lives up to his word and actually raps. But you'll wish he didn't. I know I do. "Niggas sleeping on me, had to wake them from their naps," he says. It's like he broke into the Louvre in Paris and took a shit on the Mona Lisa, except worse.

And he does this throughout the entire mixtape. Whether it's another Kanye song in "H.A.M." or ASAP Rocky's "Goldie," he just takes good songs and makes them shitty. If you're going to be a crappy rapper, at least ruin your own beats, not good beats used by actual rappers.

Slowing It Down

This was a slow-ass week for mixtapes. Like, really freaking slow. The "Good" mixtape has been downloaded a total of fifty times thus far, and one of those is from me.

To put this week in perspective, B.o.B's new mixtape, Fuck 'Em We Ball, came out just hours before this was posted, which was too late to be considered for this week's post. And yet it already has just as many downloads as every mixtape covered this week combined.

But that doesn't mean the mixtapes aren't worthy of being covered. That just means this week's post is filled with artists that many, including yours truly, have never heard of before. That's Stack That Cheese, for you: always keeping it fresh.

The Good:

Rubixx - To The Third

Right off the bat, this mixtape sounds mathematical. Not in the lame multiplication table way, but the cool way they say it on Adventure Time. (Do I get any extra street cred for referencing a children's cartoon? No? I didn't think so.)

Rubixx is a rap trio from Massachusetts that describes itself as having "unique instrumentals and lyrics," and I have to say I agree with them.

"Join the Rubixx covenant / And I'm loving it, I use it like an oven mitt / My hand is in the flame and I can tell I'm truly touching it."

That line was from the third track, "Day Dream." When I heard it, I was already pretty impressed with the trio's rhymes on the debut mixtape, but that line made it so that I had to include them this week.

And the trio continues to impress throughout the entire mixtape.

"Persephony" might be my favorite off To The Third. It's a love song with a string-based beat. There are some good lines, such as "Let's relight the candle and let it melt into our hands," but where the song really shines is the fluency between the three rappers: Gabe Thompson, Ari Wrubel and Phil Dumont. With something as personal as a love song, you would think changing from person to person for each verse would cause some emotion to be lost in the process, but that's just not true when it comes to Rubixx.

If I have one gripe about To The Third it would be that the hooks are really just mediocre. But the trio's rhymes and fluency makes this a non-issue. At the very least, this mixtape deserves more than fifty downloads.

The Bad:

Blizz - Live Your Dreams Or Die Trying

I spent a good amount of time deciding whether Live Your Dreams or Die Trying or the next mixtape belonged in the "Re-dic-yu-lus" category. Both mixtapes are pretty bad. The only difference is the subject matter.

On Live Your Dreams Or Die Trying, Blizz opens up about his past and leaves it all on his first mixtape. The other mixtape is about, well...you'll see.

While I respect Blizz for being so open and going through the stuff that he's had to deal with ("I remember those nights / When I wish I had a gun"), that doesn't mean he's a good rapper.

Blizz's biggest problem is that he's being too generic. I mean, the mixtape is called Live Your Dreams or Die Trying, for Christ's sake. Everything the man does is generic.

He uses overused rhyme schemes, such as the interchangeable life/night/knife/right rhymes.

He's got old lines, such as in "'Bout That" when he says, "Y'all niggas ain't got racks / Stop talking 'bout them stacks."

He even has cliché songs, such as "Be Yaself," in which he talks about how he "came up from nothing" and everything else you would expect in a song with a gooey title and a grammatical error.

And it's really too bad that he's so generic, because it's clear he comes from something so different. But he failed to deliver. Simple as that.

The Re-dic-yu-lus

Kyoto - Sextape

Okay, now do you see why this mixtape was saved for last?

While Blizz is busy being serious about his life, Kyoto has an album titled Sextape.

And it doesn't stop at the title. Every track on this mixtape is named after a porn star (at least that's what Google told me). So, just for the added fun of it, let's provide a picture of each song's namesake that I review (fully clothed, of course). I'll even turn Safe Search on, just for you, my Cheese Heads.

Let's start with "Alexis Texas." Strangely enough, it starts with a creepy voice-over about how greed "for lack of a better word, is good" over some marching. If this album wasn't entitled Sextape, I might look into it and try to figure out what it meant, but, as you probably know by now, Kyoto's mixtape really is called Sextape. Kyoto actually isn't a horrible rapper. He has some decent lines: "I used to be a violent adolescent / Pay attention, smoking weed because I'm always stressing." But he loses the listener with his production. Over the last 30 seconds, he starts singing about how he wants to see that "40 ounce bounce, bitch," except he adds a horrible auto-tune that sounds like it was done by that old "Sound Like T-Pain" app.

He continues using that same crappy auto-tune in the song "Brianna Love," where he raps, "I've got that Brianna Love for you / Presidential candidate Al Gore for you." He even sings in auto-tuned falsetto at one point!

And then there's "Eva Angelina," which is just a whole new level of horrible production. The song is just under two minutes long, and yet all of it is incomprehensible. That's because, for whatever reason, Kyoto thought that it would be cool to change the pitch of his voice and make it really high. But he didn't stop there. He added another recording of him, but deepened it, and made it sync up with the chipmunk recording of him. So we end up listening to both high-pitched and low-pitched Kyoto rapping together.

This is just an embarrassing go-around for Kyoto, mixing bad production with an immature theme. Plus, my Internet history looks sketchy as hell now.

Before I end this week's post, I feel it's only fair to give the ladies a little eye-candy, too. Because here at Stack That Cheese, we respect women!

You're welcome ladies. ;)

-- Xavier Veccia, dropping the mic for now.

@xprime_time

Stars and Stripes

This week has been all about America. With the election on Tuesday, America was all everybody could talk about and how one candidate or the other was probably going to take a massive dump on it if he were to win.

And all this talk about America got me all patriotic. So this week's Stack That Cheese is all about the stars, just like the American flag.

The Good:

Nelly - Scorpio Season

Everyone knows who Nelly is. You know who he is, your grandmother knows he is, even the Amish know who he is. He's one of the biggest entertainers of the 2000s. He's made hit after hit, been in movies and has made it so that if anyone says, "It's getting hot in here," someone has to respond with, "So take off all your clothes."

But in the rap community, no one's ever going to mention him in the same breath as Tupac or The Notorious B.I.G. He's a pop rapper. He's not supposed to be as legendary as them.

So why is he in the "Good" category this week?

Simple. Because Nelly shows how big a mixtape can be.

With Scorpio Season, Nelly pulls out all the stops. He's got A-list features. He's got big-producers. He treats this mixtape as if it were an album, and that shows dedication.

There's the song "MJ" featuring B.o.B (who I've always liked better on mixtapes), which was a bonus track on B.o.B's latest album, but now it's here and I'm not going to complain. Bobby Ray sings a brilliantly catchy hook and lends his unique flow to a couple verses. He even mutters the line, "Kush in my cologne, you know the aroma," which for some reason I absolutely love.

There's "GO," which is produced by Drumma Boy ("No Hands" and "Put On" are among his most popular songs). Drumma Boy incorporates a hard drum beat, piano and horns into a fantastically produced song with a hook of, "Blow the smoke in the air" sung by Nelly. (Speaking of voting and smoke: Congratulations to Colorado and Washington.)

And for whatever reason, Nelly tucks Chris Brown away in a bonus song called "Marry Go Round," which is strangely epic. Nelly and Breezy seem to be a match made in heaven and I would love to see them together again in the near future.

The dedication shows on Scorpio Season, and with the big features, it makes a good mixtape.

The Bad:

Gudda Gudda - Guddaville 3

Okay, maybe Gudda Gudda doesn't really fall under the "star" category, but the Young Money artist has connections and he calls in some favors to get them on his latest mixtape. And that's good enough for me.

But Gudda is not good enough for me. He's actually pretty bad.

Let's start with "Drank N Smoke" with big feature number one, Wiz Khalifa. Gudda makes this song as simple as it can get, with mostly one-syllable rhymes that even Lil Poopy could come up with. And am I the only one who finds it hilarious that Wiz is being a featured on yet another song about smoking and drinking, but with a title that's just a jumbled up version of his recent song "Smokin' Drink?"

Then there's "As Da World Turns" with big feature number two, Lil Wayne. I will give this to Weezy: he does sing great choruses. But his voice has layer after layer of synthesizers over it. It's sickening.

And finally there's the pièce de résistance in "I'm Gudda" with big feature number three, 2 Chainz. (I'm coming to the realization that I'm going to be hearing a lot of 2 Chainz with this blog, and I'm strangely fine with that.) With 2 Chainz and Gudda Gudda on the same track, you know there will be plenty of awful lyrics, but none of that matters because the chorus (which repeats "I'm Gudda" multiple times before Gudda Gudda says, "I got high-cholesterol / Yeah, I got that butter") is so horrendous that I don't even care that the rest of the rap is bad, too.

Gudda Gudda digs himself into so deep of a hole with this album that no amount of stars could save him.

The Re-dic-yu-lus

Soulja Boy - Young & Flexin

This rapper needs no introduction, but I'm going to have to give one anyway because it would look awkward linking to "Crank That" right away.

So I will tell a story instead. Once there was a young lad by the name of Javier Beccia (no relation to yours truly). As a freshman at an all-boy Jesuit high school, Javier had to do a report on The Odyssey. But it wasn't like he just had to write a paper. He had to put together a presentation. What would he do?

He could put together a skit with some friends. Maybe he could do an interpretive dance. Or, maybe he could just write a rap about the book to the tune of "Crank That."

And that's exactly what young Javier did. And it was perfectly fine. Even at an all-boy Jesuit high school. Because that song had become so much a part of our society at that time, that it was acceptable anywhere.

Ok, that killed time. Now let's link this bitch!

And that was the last time nearly everyone heard from Soulja Boy. Sure, there was that "Hop up out my bed / Turn my swag ooooon" song and then, of course, "Yahh!" was kind of popular. (Or was I the only one who listened to it because I found it hilarious?) But for the most part, Soulja Boy has just started releasing mixtape after mixtape, developing a low-key underground fanbase, but never really getting into the mainstream again. (That's probably a good thing, though.)

This is my first time listening to him since his heyday, too. And I have to say, he's just as bad.

Last week, I wrote about Lil B, but what I failed to mention is that, while there's no proof of it, there is a theory out there that suggests that the Based God is just pretending to be so bad for satirical reasons. And if that is the case, I'm about 99% sure Soulja is his inspiration.

"Lebron James" is the perfect example. It starts off with a chorus of, "I'm Lebron James" that, thanks to Soulja Boy's pronunciation, eventually becomes "Ollo brawn jains." And then it opens up the first verse with, "Ballin' all you fuck niggas / Fuck niggas / You fuck niggas." And it doesn't get any better.

I guess I'm happy and all for Soulja Boy that he's still around and still making music, but I wish he didn't have to ruin rap for me while he was at it. But he did grace the world with a fun dance that I am actually capable of doing, so I guess we're even

-- Xavier Veccia, dropping the mic for now.

@xprime_time

All Based Day

Welcome back, Cheeseheads (that's right, I'm sticking with it). I'm extremely excited for this week's edition!

Although I am a bit upset that this week's post came one day too late for it to be Halloween-themed, I'm just going to run with it and make it All Saints' Day-themed. Where else are you going to find a blog tying in vulgar rapping about weed and bitches with a Christian holiday? That's what I thought! Who gon' stop me, HUH?!

The Good:

Curren$y – Priest Andretti

Curren$y has always been one of those rappers who I was aware of, who I respected, but I never really listened to.

I've listened to some of his earlier stuff with Wiz Khalifa and I've heard him in multiple other rappers' songs, but in my massive iTunes library, I don't have any Curren$y mixtapes.

But, now that I have a blog where all I do is download mixtapes, I figured I might as well use this as an opportunity to get more acquainted with the 10Fest artist.

And I've got to say, he's not half bad.

Curren$y is definitely a stoner rapper, which isn't always a good thing (see Cabin Fever 2). But what usually separates a good stoner rapper from a bad stoner rapper, in my experience at least, tends to be good beats.

Just like how ASAP Rocky has built up a reputation of being one of the best rappers out right now (despite not actually being that great of a rapper) with the help of such producers as Clams Casino, Curren$y manages to do the same thing on Priest Andretti.

A lot of the beats Curren$y & co. rap over have an old-timey feel, which kind of goes with the cover.

“Motion” feat. Cornerboy P is one of the more unique tracks, with a flute-based instrumental that fuses jazz with hip-hop, and that usually turns out well.

Unfortunately, there is no information on who produced these tracks, so I can't give credit where credit is due.

But I can say that Priest Andretti is worth a listen, at the very least to hear the masterful production.

The Bad:

Chingy – Chances Make Champions

WHAAAAT?! Chingy's alive?!

That's right! Chingy is back!

Remember this little jam from back in the day?

When that song was hot, I would jam out to it all day until my bedtime in the backseat of my mommy's car while drinking apple juice out of my sippy cup.

That's obviously an over-exaggeration, but it's not too far from the truth. That song is from 2003. That's almost ten years ago! Screw Toy Story 3, Chingy's what makes me feel old (but for real, Toy Story 3 was a slap to the face of my fading childhood).

But now that I am an adult who (more or less) knows what good music is, looking back on the Chingy that accompanied my childhood, I now realize how utterly bad he was.

Which is really quite depressing because now I can't even look back at the “good ol' days” while listening to Chances Make Champions, which is even worse than 2003 Chingy.

Straight from the get-go, this mixtape is horrible. Even the title is bad. Chances Make Champions? That's so corny!

And then, right after the intro, Chingy goes into a song called “Go Dumb,” which seems to be exactly what he has done. Chingy is almost incomprehensible throughout the entire song, but when you can understand him, he's spitting lines like, “Wish I shot you fuck niggas.” Oh yeah, that makes sense.

And probably the most fascinating song has to be “Yangin',” simply for the fact that “Ching-Ching” insists he's “yanging on dem hoes,” but I have no idea what the hell that means! According to the always trustworthy Urban Dictionary, yanging is “utter nonsense” or “bullshit.” And if that's the case, why is that something for Chingy to brag about?

Overall, this is just a disappointing mixtape that destroyed my childhood. Just a typical Thursday here at Stack That Cheese!

The Re-dic-yu-lus:

Before I reveal the re-dic-yu-lus mixtape for the week, I feel I need to have one prayer for All Saints' Day. And even though I don't want to mix religion with blogging, I feel it's necessary considering the occasion.

So, if you will, just virtually join hands with me and read along with the prayer.

Dear Based God,

Thank you for blessing us this week with yet another mixtape.

Your words of wisdom blanket me, making me feel safe and warm in your company.

Your brilliant beats remind me of simpler times.

And your swag is so wonderful, that even trying to explain it would be a sin.

So please, Based God

Watch over me,

Grant me swag,

And fuck my bitches.

Amen.

In case you didn't figure it out from the prayer (if you're religious and were offended by it, I apologize), the mixtape that you've been waiting for is none other than:

Lil B – Halloween H2O

I've dreamt of this moment. As soon as I thought of creating this blog, all I wanted to do was review a Lil B mixtape. Just once. And now, in my third blog post, I finally have my opportunity.

For those of you who don't know who Lil B a.k.a. The Based God is, what the fuck are you doing with your life? (I'm not apologizing if I offended you with this. That's your own fault. You're the one who hasn't heard of the almighty Based God.)

Lil B is technically classified as a rapper, but that's of course still up for debate.

He started out his career at the age of sixteen, rapping with a Bay Area group called The Pack. The Pack received a little bit of mainstream success with the song “Vans,” which was even named the fifth best song of 2006 by Rolling Stone magazine.

Lil B broke off from The Pack in late 2009/early 2010. He created over 155 myspace accounts to release all of his music, and just by July of 2010, he had already recorded 1500 songs. It's over two years later and that tally has gone up so high that nobody even knows how many songs the Based God has recorded, not even the Based God himself.

Some of Lil B's most prolific releases are his Flame series of mixtapes, I'm Gay (I'm Happy) (the album that's actually a mixtape), the smash hit "Wonton Soup" and his 855 Freestyle mixtape. And I assure you that is not a typo.

Now, Lil B is a cult favorite of sorts. You won't hear any of his songs on the radio (hopefully), but here on the Internet, they love him. He's even got memes!

And here he is with, according to Wikipedia, his 14^th mixtape of 2012, Halloween H2O. And we still have two more months (swag).

This is just as fantastically bad as everything Based God puts out.

From the ill-timed “Merry Xmas,” which is accompanied by an insanely creepy bass-filled beat that opens with the line, “She get so high when she look in my eyes / And she know that I go through that money in the sky,” to “Layday,” which has a horribly obnoxious beat and an equally horribly sung chorus of “Layday, I tell you 'bout my baby.” (And did I mention Lil B wants to release a rock album/mixtape where he would end up singing?)

And then of course, there's the Based Freestyles at the end of Halloween H2O. Unlike most freestyles, in which rappers come in already thinking of what they want to rap about before they record, Lil B raps with just a stream of consciousness, which is actually respectable.

My favorite of these freestyles is “Halloween Bitches,” where he has such lines as “I fucked a bitch full of money” and “I flex 25 bitches in the summertime / Thirty bitches in the middle of May,” along with constantly saying, “I flex bitches,” despite having a song with that exact title right before this freestyle in which he could have done the exact same thing!

After listening to a mixtape, there's only one thing to say: Thank you, Based God!

-- Xavier Veccia, dropping the mic for now.

@xprime_time