The Good:
Big Sant is a Mississippi rapper who definitely represents the Southern feel. I mean, his Facebook page says he's "0% bitch!" If that's not Southern rap, then I don't know what is.
The Great American Mattress Sale is noticeably different from a lot of the rap out there straight from the get-go. It has a handful of goofy skits that sound like commercials for, you guessed it, a mattress sale. This gives the mixtape a fun vibe to it.
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| If only Sant had an actual gospel choir. |
But this playful attitude follows into the songs. Sant has a lot of fun with the beats. There's some pretty big funk and gospel influences on here and Sant's not afraid to unleash a few freestyles.
Normally, I'm not a big fan of freestyles on mixtapes and albums. These should be treated as a platform for an artist's best work that they spent countless hours putting together. But Big Sant manages to put together some pretty good bars over some well-thought out beats.
"Numbers" is a freestyle that is actually one of Big Sant's best performance on the album. The fact that lines like "She looking for a trick / It ain't under my sleeve, darling" came off the top of his head just makes it more impressive. Plus, the beat is a banger thanks to its bass and creative use of percussion.
"Full Time Hustler" is one of his more Southern songs. The beat is composed of some funky bass slapping and a tambourine with a chorus sung by Sant himself. Plus, the idea of being a hustler is something that a Mississippi rapper almost has to embrace.
And if we're talking Mississippi rap, it's hard not to bring up names like Big K.R.I.T., David Banner and Tito Lopez. Luckily for the listener, all these soulful Southerners appear on one track, "Fire Water II."
This has to be the mixtape's stand out song. The beat, produced by David...David...David Banner, is one of those beats that needs to be blasted in a car going 15 in a 25, driver nodding his head and clutching the steering wheel with only one hand. And Sant, Lopez and K.R.I.T. all deliver in their performances. K.R.I.T. especially comes through. Even among other talents, K.R.I.T. still seems like a rap god with his freaky fast flow.
Big Sant puts together a really good mixtape with The Great American Mattress Sale that should put him into any conversation about modern Southern rap, and manages to have fun while doing it.
The Bad:
The only thing that bothers me more than bad rap is bad rap that could be good with just a little extra effort. That's really just the best summary of The Expansion Tape that I can give, honestly.
Where The Expansion Tape falters is Mann's lyrics. He has an alright flow--a bit like Big Sean. But his rhymes just don't live up to the potential that his mixtape has.
Any semblance of potential comes from the beats that he gets for The Expansion Tape. Most mixtapes have one or two main producers with maybe a couple extra sprinkled into the mix. Mann decides to go a totally different route, managing to get some production from multiple sources and most of it is pretty good.
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| "Barbie Girl" meets rap on "Hooked on Phonics." |
"Hooked on Phonics" is produced by Laze & Royal. They give the track an early 2000s electronic pop feel thanks to a sample of a bubbly female vocalist. Paired with some hip-hop drums and synths, this sample becomes a legitimate beat. But Mann makes the song less listenable with his lyrics, where he rhymes words like "bull shit," "took it" and "crooked." His flow makes up for it a bit, but not enough to salvage the track.
"Rather Dream," produced by Sounds (dumb name for a good producer) is a slow jam that gets gradually more "bumping," as the kids say, thanks to some interesting toned-down synths. But once again, Mann stays with an overly simplistic rhyme scheme and it lowers the entertainment value yet again.
"Love is Back" is one of the more interesting beats I've heard as of late, sampling little kids singing and pairing it with a simple piano riff. Plus, tone Oliver shows up to provide a decent verse, especially compared to Mann. I'd even go so far to say that not even Mann could ruin this song.
With just a little extra effort on his lyrics, Mann could've made a good mixtape. He managed to get some borderline great production, but he's just not ready to live up to that same level. Mann's definitely worth keeping an eye on, because if he improves even a little, he could be extremely entertaining. But for now, he's still got some improving to do.
The Re-dic-yu-lus:
Look at this. The rapper. The title. The cover. Everything about this screams cliché stoner rap.
I originally had him as just bad. But I had to downgrade him. This shit stank!
Imagine being there for the conversation that led to his name.
"Hey dude, what should my name be?"
"It should probably reflect who you are as a person. Let's see, your name is Sam. You're still pretty young. You..."
"Wait. I got it! Young Sam!"
"Brilliant!"
Or what about the idea of this mixtape?
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| I'm not positive, but I think Young Sam smokes this. |
"Ok, now with this mixtape, I want to get across the idea that I smoke weed."
"How do you expect to do that?"
"I was thinking naming it after a common stoner phrase."
"Good idea, but what if it's not obvious enough?"
"Then the cover will show me smoking weed with a massive bag of dank to my side."
"You did it again, Sam!"
I'm exaggerating a bit, but after listening to Wake & Bake, I don't think I'm too far off.
Based on the comments on this mixtape, it's clear I have the same idea as a lot of people on the internet--he's Wiz without any hint of talent.
He definitely can't rhyme. In fact, the very first line of the mixtape on the title track freestyle (see why I don't usually like freestyles on albums?) goes, "Raised in the streets where those niggas talk weak / 911 can't save nobody." I mean if he had anything that remotely sounded like flow, he might be able to make that line work. But I'd be surprised if Young Sam had rhythm, let alone flow.
Sometimes, he'll try to make up for this with Auto-Tune, like on "Pornstar." But the Auto-Tune is so obvious and obnoxious that I wouldn't be surprised if he made this track on Fruity Loops. (Normally, I would put a picture of a pornstar in PG-13 attire to get some extra views from my pervert fans, but I'm in the library writing this and that's a little low even for me.)
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| Drake's crying after hearing Young Sam's rendition of his track. |
The worst thing about Wake & Bake is that he doesn't just stick to ruining his own amateur beats--he takes perfectly good songs and ruins them with what he calls rapping. Just check out "Wu Tang Forever" to see what I mean.
Stoner rap isn't my favorite subgenre by any means. In fact, I've gone on the record bashing the modern poster child for it. But it can be done well. Young Sam, though, does not do it justice by any definition of the word.
-X-Prime, dropping the mic for now.
@XavierVeccia
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