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$y has always
been one of those rappers who I was aware of, who I respected, but I
never really listened to.
I've listened to
some of his earlier stuff with Wiz Khalifa and I've heard him in
multiple other rappers' songs, but in my massive iTunes library, I
don't have any Curren$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:
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:
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 14th 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.
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