March Madness

It's pretty hard typing while you're biting your nails. But I'm somehow managing that while both writing this Stack That Cheese entry and watching basketball, hoping and praying to the Based God that nothing will go horribly wrong and ruin my (so far) perfect bracket. There's a pretty good chance that I'll lose a game by the time I'm done with this blog. So let's just get it over with so I can possibly say I made it through a whole blog post without wanting to rip up my bracket.

The Good:

Yelawolf - Trunk Muzik Returns

Yelawolf is probably the most complicated rapper for me. Sometimes, I really love his (trunk) music. "Daddy's Lambo" has probably been one of the most played songs in my car. The bass in that song just gives me a massive...amount of joy.

But then he almost ruined a nearly perfect song on "1Train" off A$AP Rocky's Long Live A$AP. He had by far the worst verse on a track filled with some of the best in the game.

I don't really know what it is. It might be his voice. Or his white trash attitude. Or maybe we just don't agree. But Trunk Muzik Returns is too hard not to agree with.

I think I've come to the conclusion that Yelawolf is just flat out better on his own stuff. If a song's tailored for him and his flow, then he fits perfectly. It's quite difficult to find a song that's very Yelawolf-like. He's got a very distinct essence about him. But Trunk Muzik Returns, produced by WillPower, does a great job of capturing that essence and making it into music.

White guy spitting? He kinda
sounds like Eminem.

"Catfish Billy" is honestly the Yelawolf song. It has just the right amount of creepiness, craziness and trashiness. The beat is mostly just composed of an out-of-tune violin and drum, and it manages to do so much with so little. Yelawolf reminds me a lot of Eminem, and not just because he's another crazy white guy who can spit. But he has such control over his voice and knows exactly when to use it to propel the song. He starts off his verse by narrating with a creepy-ass nasally voice and he raps most of the second verse quickly. He just does such a great job of entertaining the listener with so little.

Yelawolf also manages to get a few impressive features on Trunk Muzik Returns.  "Gangster" features A$AP Rocky, returning the favor from "1Train." WillPower does a solid job of creating a beat that can fit both rappers' styles. When Yelawolf spits his verse, the rickety beat sounds unstable. When A$AP hits the track, the beat may not change, but it suddenly sounds more chill just because of A$AP's voice. It's like an illusion of sound.

Yelawolf also manages to get features from Paul Wall and Raekwon on "Hustle" and Killer Mike on "Rhyme Room." Both are quality songs that, with WillPower's production, complement everyone involved.

Yelawolf's certainly talented. His style may not always be easy to agree with, but when he's synced with the beat, he can be straight fire.

The Bad:

Rich Boy - Back to Class

If you've read my blog since the beginning, or even for a few weeks here and there, you ought to know that one of my favorite things to do on Stack That Cheese is look back on rappers from my adolescence. So far we've touched on some pretty memorable artists, such as Chingy and Soulja Boy. But I just wouldn't feel complete if I never went over Rich Boy.

Honestly, I'm not even sure Rich Boy was that big of a thing now that I look back. He really only had that "Throw Some D's" song that I remember more from almost everybody else shouting "Throw some d's on it" than I remember from the actual song. And the only song I ever really liked was "Let's Get This Paper," which doesn't seem nearly as good now as it did back then.

But then again, Rich Boy doesn't seem all that hot right now either.

I didn't realize how money-oriented Rich Boy's music was until listening to Back to Class. I don't know how, honestly. He's pretty upfront about it. I mean, his name is Rich Boy.

He continues that obsession with money as soon as Back to Class begins. His first three songs, "Get Dat Doe," "Break the Pot" and "Bitches N Bands," are all clearly about money. Even the beats are clearly the kind of beats that would be used in music about money--they go hard, but they're not the kind of beat you'd bump.

Rich Boy is really just a classic "trap" artist. By trap, I don't mean the electronic genre. I'm referring to how he mainly focuses on making money and what he does after getting that money. Usually, it just involves throwing it on women and spending it on unnecessary things.

Even his songs that don't focus on money seem very stereotypical from a rap artist. Take his song "Party," featuring his frequent collaborator Playboy, along with Maja. The beat is actually kind of nice, featuring some slow piano playing. But his lyrics mostly just focus on, you guessed it, a party. When Rich Boy spits, "Turn off the lights / Take it off tonight," he's just using a line that people would expect from any rapper, and he doesn't stand out.

Rich Boy has proved yet again that it's much better just to keep nostalgia over an artist than learn just how bad they are.

The Re-dic-yu-lus:

Young D - Briccs Vol. 3

After listening to Young D's mixtape, only one question came to mind: how the hell were there two Briccs before this volume?

It's a valid question, I swear. He's horrible. And not even in the cool "so horrible you'll laugh" way. He's just an unoriginal rapper with unoriginal lines that are just a little worse than most other rappers.

The funniest thing about Young D is the fact that he just replaces "ck" in every word with "cc." So, to have a little fun with this, I'm going to do the same. Will it be funny? Will it piss off my blogs editor? Do I care? No, yes, and way too much. So let's just get it craccing befor I bacc out. (This is already so fun).

Speaking of using "cc" instead of "ck," Young D starts off Briccs Vol. 3 with "My Chicc Bad." In case you didn't guess it, this tracc samples "My Chick Bad" by Ludacris. And by "sample" I mean he just jaccs the song from Ludacris. Young D does manage to sneak in a couple of goofy lines, such as "So tell me have you seen her / My chicc is like a warrior, something like Xena," but follows those lines with something like "So don't you dare try to fight her / My chicc stay hot, her nickname is fire." And then he passes time with a pointless skit listing the chiccs he has in a high-pitched voice.

If you've seen this chicc,
tell Young D immediately.

"Pain" is probably his worst song. But that's just because whoever the hell is singing the chorus succs. He's completely off-pitch and, just like many bad songs, the chorus goes on for way too long. Don't get me wrong, Young D's plenty bad himself. He's trying to describe the pain of some girl leaving him, but it's in an upbeat song and he's shouting his emotions. Plus, there's a point when he rhymes "running back" with "run back" and "running back" again. There's plenty that this tracc laccs for it to even be in the neighborhood of a good song.

There's also a song called "Necc Breaker" that has a chorus that sounds exactly like he's saying "She's a dicc breaker" instead of "necc breaker." So, annunciation is something else he needs to improve upon.

Young D definitely isn't the most re-dic-yu-lus rapper featured on Stacc That Cheese, but he's also far from the best. If he improved on a few things, he might be able to cracc the bad section next time around, but he would also need a lot of lucc.

Also, in case any of you are wondering, my braccet succs and I hate the world. That's all.

-- Xavier Veccia, dropping the mic for now.

@xprime_time