Young Thug

The Good:

Young Thug & Bloody Jay - Black Portland

I'm not a big Future fan, but I enjoy Ty Dolla $ign's Auto-Tune ballads. Chief Keef doesn't really do it for me, but I can certainly mess with King Louie and his brand of Chicago gangsta rap. I think Migos is just alright, but I think I love Young Thug.

Let me clarify why I just listed all those inconsistencies within my music taste.

I've listened to Black Portland a lot over the last few days. In fact, I can't stop listening to it. I've probably listened to this mixtape more over the past year than any artist not named Chance the Rapper or Vic Mensa. And it's not necessarily because it's good. It's just...so different.

Young Thug is an Atlanta native who's been receiving a lot of hype as artists like Migos and Future have been rising out of the Hotlanta scene. He was just recently signed to Future's Freebandz label if that gives you any idea how big this kid is.

But he's not like the banger-producing Migos or the Auto-Tune-heavy Future. You might be able to convince me he's somewhere in between the two, but it'd be hard because Young Thug isn't much like any rapper. His stature is a mix of 2 Chainz and Wiz Khalifa, he's got a septum piercing and his facial tattoos would make Lil Wayne look clean-cut. But above all that, he sounds different.

Before I go any further, let me just comment on Bloody Jay really quickly. Bloody Jay is a fine rapper. In fact, he's probably a better rapper than Young Thug, since he follows the rules of conventional rap. But he's not skilled enough that he makes up for not being as eccentric as Thug.

Okay, now back to the reason this album is relevant at all: Young Thug. As I mentioned, he doesn't really follow conventional rap wisdom. And by that I don't mean he uses weird samples or anything like that. He literally just takes the typical hip-hop formula and throws it away. Verses to him are like prolonged choruses--another way to garner the attention of the listener. And when Bloody Jay is spitting a verse, there's Young Thug hooping and hollering in the background.

It's these random ad-libs, Thugger's yells seem to bring Black Portland to a whole new level. I've been finding myself mumbling "Fluda wuta" (from "Florida Water") to myself throughout the day. Or shouting, "I'm foreva bladdy!" from "4Ever Bloody." It sounds insane and it probably is. But here I am, a hip-hop blogger from Ohio, raving over this Atlanta rapper for what he's shouting.

There's clear influences from early Lil Wayne, which is kind of what makes him good. And the production, while not drifting too far from the Southern norm, does a good job of fitting to Thugger. But the real reason Black Portland is not just worth a listen, but actually pretty damn good, is because of Young Thug's eccentric, over-the-top, goofy-ass style.

Trev Rich, Ace Hood & Bobo Norco

The Good:

Trev Rich - Heights 3

Hot damn was this a slow week. There were a couple major releases (if you even want to consider them major), but most of them were in the awkward zone between alright and bad. I actually had to search for Trev Rich's mixtape because nothing else did it for me.

But I'm glad I did find Rich's Heights 3, which, as the title makes obvious, is the third installment of his Heights series. I don't love Heights 3 but it's certainly a good listen.

The best part of Heights 3 is easily the production, headed by Brinky Beats. The wide range of beats on Heights 3 range from simplistic piano-based ballads to futuristic bass bumpers.

A solid example of the brilliant production on this mixtape is "Prayer," which also showcases one of the few features on the album in Leonna Harper. The piano-like synths and the bassy undertones show a Kanye West influence. This influence can especially be seen when Rich paraphrases Yeezy himself, rapping, "I had a dream I could buy my way to heaven / Then I woke up in this hell without a necklace."

There's also the incredibly complex "Go Get It" beat that uses insanely heavy synths and the occasional guitar to create the most hype-worthy beat on the album.

And while Rich is far from the best lyricist, he easily makes up for it in content.

50 ain't nothing but a P-I-M-P

"50 Told Me" might be the best song on the mixtape. Over a simple piano-based beat, Rich goes against the norm and paints pimping as an evil profession. Feminism aside, pimping is usually revered in the hip-hop community (see: Snoop Dogg and 50 Cent). However, Rich looks at it from all sides, as he highlights, "Either
you're pimping or you're getting pimped."

Overall, Rich does just enough to make him stand out from the rest of the hip-hop community without doing so much as to propel him to the next level. This makes Heights 3 an entertaining listen, but doesn't make it as memorable as it could be.

The Bad:

Ace Hood - Starvation 3

If I had to be honest, I loved "Bugatti." Easily one of my favorite party tracks in 2013. The only thing more surprising than Future's damn catchy hook was the fact that it belonged to Ace Hood.

I kind of forgot about Ace Hood up until that point. I mean, the last time I really listened to an Ace Hood song pre-"Bugatti" was "Top of the World," but that's just because it was in an NBA 2K game. But that game also featured LeBron James in a Cavs jersey, so that should give you an idea of just how long ago that was.

But now, with "Bugatti" in the books, I guess Ace Hood is once again relevant. After Starvation 3, though, I'd be surprised if that lasted much longer.

Khaled's just sad he's not the best anymore

Ace Hood just feels so old now. I mean, he's signed to Cash Money and DJ Khaled's We The Best labels. If that doesn't scream late aughties, I don't know what else could. He's just a holdover from the last generation of hip-hop. And he wasn't even that successful then!

I mean, listen to "Everyday." The Auto-Tune-heavy "banger" sounds like it could have easily been a T-Pain beat.

Hell, "Home Invasion" was even produced by Cool & Dre. The former hotshot producers produced only four--count 'em, four--commercially released songs in 2013. I mean, don't get me wrong, I used to love the duo. But there's a reason for their drop in production.

The song starts off nice, sounding like a Barry White track. And then it all of a sudden shifts into a hood beat that sounds like just about everything else Ace Hood does. No wonder Cool & Dre aren't around anymore.

I mean, there are a couple of decent songs. "Hip-hop" gets a soulful sample to make it interesting and "Buss Guns" gets a good sample from Mavado to give it a heavy reggae feel. But at the end of the day, Ace Hood's just stuck in the past. Which leads to this question for Ace Hood:

The Re-dic-yu-lus:

Bobo Norco - Keep It Up

Oh. My. God. I forgot how much I loved writing this part of Stack That Cheese over the past month. But thanks to Bobo Norco, I can love again!

Everything about Bobo Norco feels like it's fake. His Auto-Tune-heavy, bubbly techno sound brings back memories of nineties boy bands. His album cover makes him look like a Macy's mannequin trying to appeal to the "urban youth." Even his name, Bobo Norco, sounds like an Italian clown. I honestly love it. I can't stop typing it. Bobo Norco. It's so great!

Now, let's give a listen to the Backstreet Boys reject's mixtape, Keep It XO, a mixtape described as "visually stunning."

If you look closely, you can see Bobo in the back.

The Bay area "rapper" is definitely on the poppy side of hip-hop. But I'd hardly associate Kevin Federline Jr. with the genre.

K-Fed is proud of his
illegitimate son

"NLNF" is a good example of this confusion in Bobo's head. See, he seems to think just because he's not singing 100% of the time (it's more like 49%) that he's rap. He sprinkles in some typical rap topics like expensive clothes, guns and women, but it comes off as more hearsay than experience. Hell, the featured rapper (who's not mentioned) raps circles around Bobo and he sucks in his own way. It's not a hard task, though, when Bobo has a rhyme scheme of twelve-twelve-shells-twelve-shells.

"NLNF," by the way, is an acronym for No Lovers, No Friends which will be the name of his debut album out on March 3, which I will happily wait the next month and a half for.

And every song sounds like "NLNF" to a horribly scary degree. I mean, there's "You," which includes Bobo doing a disgusting Pharrell impression. Or "Funk Sweat Dope" where Bobo moves from 'N Sync to Black Eyed Peas, so that's improvement, I guess? But you'd be hard-pressed to find a good track on Keep It XO. That being said, I loved Keep It XO and I cannot wait for his album in March. Bring on the re-dic-yu-lus!