The Good (a.k.a. The Best of the Ign'ant):
Kid Ink is still relatively underground, but he's started amassing a pretty decent following. I've had quite a few people tell me to start listening to him. I'm still not a huge fan of his, but when I'm in an ig'nant mood, he's not half-bad.
Let's start with "Badass." It's the second track in the album and, with the title of "Badass," it better be pretty ig'nant. And it lives up to the hype! There seems to be a growing trend among rappers to sing their own hooks without even trying to sound good. They don't take voice lessons or carry around a pitch pipe or anything like that. They just sing in their regular voice. And even though this sounds horrible even as I write this, I kinda like it. And "Badass" is the perfect example of the trend, as Ink sings about how he "sees just what you're doing with your bad-ass on."
Then there's "Ghost," which is by far the creepiest song on the mixtape. It has a haunting female voice in the background of some funky synths that is just way too scary, especially when Ink basically whispers some of his lyrics. Plus, the opening line "I think I'm 'bout to go ghost / Casper on these niggas" brings up both the memories of Casper and Danny Phantom, and that's pretty sweet.
But Ink saves his most ig'nant for the bonus track, a remix of his biggest single, "Hell & Back." If you've only heard one Kid Ink song, it was probably this one. The remix is fundamentally the same, with the same beat and chorus. The biggest difference is new verses. The first from Kid Ink, featuring this awesome line: "We ain't going nowhere like wine stains." The second verse is from the king of ig'nant himself, Machine Gun Kelly. Many know him from that "Wild Boy" song, and fellow Ohio University students remember him from this. I want to quote MGK, but I feel the only way to take in his ig'nant-ness is by listening to his whole verse.
The Bad (a.k.a. Maybe A Little Too Ig'nant):
Way back when, all the way in the year 2008, a young artist burst onto the scene with a song featuring his cousin Travie McCoy (at that point, he was still Travis) of Gym Class Heroes. That song was "Coconut Juice" and that rapper was none other than Tyga. This was when Tyga was "clean," meaning he didn't swear and probably didn't produce porn. He also made songs like this:
Now Tyga is one of the scariest rappers in the game. Despite being skinny as a twig, no one would dare mess with him. But that doesn't make him a good rapper. And 187 just proves once again how bad of a rapper he is.
187 was meant to coincide with Tyga's single with Rick Ross, which is really a ridiculous thing to do. And the mixtape clearly takes a hit because of it. Most of the songs are just reused beats with Tyga's take on it.
"Swimming Pools" is one of those songs. The beat is of course stolen from Kendrick Lamar's song of the same title. What bothers me here is that not only does he steal the beat, but he also steals the original rapper's flow. And when you're taking someone like Kendrick Lamar's flow, which is probably one of the most unique flows of the new millennium, then you're probably going to sound horrible while doing it. And he does.
But he doesn't stop at just stealing one beat per track. On "Clique/Fuckin' Problem," Tyga raps over the track from Cruel Summer and then the ASAP Rocky song. Why not just separate them into two different songs? On the "Clique" half of the song, he opens up by rapping, "Ain't nobody fucking with my clique / I'm T-Raw, young nigga, I'm the shit," but he says "clique" in such a way that it sounds like another word starting with "cli" and ending with a "t." He also brags about making "a milli off a porno flic." Then it just randomly transitions into "Fuckin' Problem." And just like last week, I'm going to have to complain about someone stealing ASAP Rocky's deep voice effect! This is the problem with stealing other's flows. It just ends up looking stupid. And Tyga does well at looking stupid.
The Re-dic-yu-lus (a.k.a. Way Too Fucking Ig'nant):
I've spent all day trying to figure out how I knew Papoose. I knew that there was some place where I've seen that name, but I couldn't figure it out. Luckily, we have Wikipedia in this day and age. And thanks to Wikipedia, I figured it out: Busta Rhymes' remix of "Touch It."
You wanna see an ig'nant video? That right up there is an ig'nant video. Also, it's quite fitting that the one thing I've heard from Papoose is in a song in which he says "re-dic-yu-lus" and now he is re-dic-lus.
I really had to look no further than the title track to realize it. Once again, it's a cover of "Clique." I mean, it's a good song and all, but not good enough for every rapper and their grandmother to use it on their mixtape. At least Papoose brings his own flow, but that doesn't help much. My favorite line has to be, "If you ain't a pussy than why you so moist?"
I can't even overlook a feature from Kendrick Lamar on the song "Lyrical Gangsta." It is a fantastic verse, but it's over an awkward-feeling electronic-heavy beat. And it's quickly forgotten once Papoose chimes in. He's just so in-your-face when it comes to rapping. You feel like you have to turn the volume down every time he comes on. And that's just a bit too ig'nant for me.
Well, there were 16 uses of "ig'nant" in this post. Hopefully, there's at least one person out there reading this on Thirsty Thursday and getting way too hammered. That's all I want in life.
-- Xavier Veccia, dropping the mic for now.
