Kimye Day

Before I get started, I just want to say congratulations to Kanye West and Kim Kardashian on their recent engagement. Hopefully, the next time Kanye googles himself, he comes across this and knows that the hip-hop blog community loves him and wishes him luck. Or he just notices me. That'd be pretty awesome.

The Good:

Big Sant - The Great American Mattress Sale

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.

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:

Mann - The Expansion Tape

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.

"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:

Young Sam - Wake & Bake

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?

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.)

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

Season Finale

It feels like just yesterday when I emailed my blogs editor about a mixtape review-based blog. Not long after, I followed through with it. It was rough at first. Hell, it still is rough sometimes. But I slowly started building a blog-writing formula that I have stuck with week after week (for the most part). And I've honestly really enjoyed it. But with the school year coming to an end, so must this blog. But come August, Stack That Cheese will be back and better than ever.

The Good:

King Los - Becoming King

Los was a Baltimore rapper who gained a pretty decent following due to his quick delivery and wordplay. But Los is no more. He goes from Los to King Los in a matter of minutes on the title track of Becoming King.

He begins with just talking about his goals, saying, "If I can do one thing in the world, it would be to inspire just one person" as the beat filled with cymbals and electric guitar builds and builds. As he reaches the conclusion, he begins his rap. And right away, the listener just knows he witnessed a transformation from a rapper to a king.

From there on out, King Los just rides that momentum to put together a fantastic mixtape.

While the king could certainly do that on his own, he brings along company to prove just how royal he truly is. With features from some of the biggest names in rap, from Diddy to Wiz Khalifa to Ludacris, it's clear this king has quite the court.

"Disappointed" is the song that features both Diddy and Ludacris. While Diddy's just there for the chorus, Ludacris is there to spit a great verse. One of his best lines is, "I can get a little cocky / Pulling off in my Kawasaki / Thousand dollar bottles of Saki / Taking shots to the head like Rocky." But, just like a true king, Los doesn't get outdone by his guests. His flow is crisp and his lines are empowering, making him stand out the most. "I move different and breathe different / Niggas cut me, I fuck around and bleed different," he says.

Another quality song is "Dope," featuring Pusha T and Yo Gotti. Yet again, the featured artists go all out, showing just how much respect they have for Los. Pusha delivers one of the best verses of any featured artist on Becoming King, saying, "King Los with the king pin / King Push about to king him / King's ransom for a kilo / Took mine and built a kingdom."

But King Los can also put together a great song by himself. "Hard Life" is one of those songs. He does the chorus himself, thanks to a little help from Auto-Tune. But it doesn't seem overdone when Los does it. And his second verse is so ridiculously good it's unbelievable. He comes in hard and quick and continues this pace throughout the verse. It's no wonder he's wearing the crown.

And the production on Becoming King is good, too. But the great thing about it is that it just seems to compliment Los. The listener can't be drawn into the production because he's so busy being drawn into Los.

Becoming King is quite ambitious, actually. Not only has Los taken on a new persona, but he's changed his being. He really is a king now. Los wasn't getting noticed enough, but thanks to Becoming King, it's all but certain King Los will be.

The Bad:

Future & FreeBand Gang - Black Woodstock

I'm not going to lie. I've gone pretty hard to some songs featuring Future. Everytime "Bugatti" by Ace Hood or "Love Me" by Lil Wayne comes on at a house party, I can't control myself. I may start shouting, "I woke up in a new Bugatti." And once I start, I can't stop.

"Hello my baby, hello my
honey, hello my ragtime bitch."

But every time I find myself in this situation, as I'm going HAM as hell, I can't help thinking, "How the hell is this dude famous?" Like, seriously, how is this dude famous? I don't get it. Maybe if he was a rapper and purely a rapper, I could get it. But he's not. That's not his call to fame. He's a singer. But in order to be a singer, don't you need to have a good voice? Apparently not, because Future sounds like a drunk frog and he still manages to do it.

I wish I could say that's harsh, but it's really not. It's the truth. Take the song "Keys" for example. He sings the chorus and he sounds horrible. Like if there was a ghetto karaoke bar, he would be performing there. But that doesn't stop Future. He just shouts out, "I know keeeeys" like it's nothing.

And then he raps the verses, but he's incomprehensible in those. I try to understand him, but I can't. I saw a comment on the album from some random Hot New Hip-Hop member saying that Future sounds like he stole Mike Jones' flow. And I can't help but notice how true that is. But why would you do that? Mike Jones' biggest song is "Who is Mike Jones?" Even Mike Jones thinks he's irrelevant.

This theme continues throughout the whole mixtape. "Take This 4 Granted" is another good example. Once again, Future sings the chorus, but this time, it's even less clear than before. He continues his singing into the verse, but it's still not clear. If you're going to release music, shouldn't it at least be possible to understand you?

But this mixtape also belongs to his crew, who apparently goes by the name "FreeBand Gang." And it's just a collection of people who are even worse than Future. The song "Blow Them Bands" is a song by Stuey Rock featuring Future. I was hoping for this to be good because most songs featuring Future manage to at least get the listener pumped up. But the beat here is just cheesy and Stuey Rock is intolerable. He sounds like a mix between a bad hair band singer and a 14-year-old who just discovered how to use Auto-Tune.

There's also a rapper on Black Woodstock that goes by the name of Casino. He might be one of the better members of the FreeBand Gang, but his flow is basically just him shouting into the microphone. Try listening to three minutes of that.

I don't think I'll ever get the hype behind Future, especially after Black Woodstock.

The Re-dic-yu-lus:

Soulja Boy - Foreign 2

What better way to end Stack That Cheese's year than with Soulja Boy? Answer: probably a lot of things. But Soulja will do.

Soulja Boy's been on Stack That Cheese before, but I spent most of the time talking about his olden days of "Crank That." Now I actually have to listen to it and just make fun of current Soulja Boy. Ugh. 

Soulja Boy's kind of like the human version of Lil B. He shouts out random sylables ("Wah!"), he makes horrible metaphors and he's just laughable. The only difference is that there is no suspicion that he's just joking around. He's completely serious. Which might make him even funnier.

Cake and a pussy. It's Soulja Boy's dream.

Take the song "Yea Yea." I don't even understand where he's trying to go with it. Over a repetitive beat, he just shouts out lines like "SBZ, I should be on the Lakers." At one point he just says, "Cake cake cake / I want that cake, cake, cake." Wait, what?

"Soulja Walk" is another fun song. The beat is better now, with some nice bass and synths that actually make it somewhat tolerable. Until Soulja starts rapping, that is. The chorus just consists of "Walk, walk, walk / Soulja walk, walk, walk" and it goes about 30 seconds too long. And his lines are just plain stupid, like "Shawty right here / All on my pants / Shawty right here / Go and do your dance." And this is all while shouting every one else's catchphrases, like "swerve," "swag" and "turn up."

There is a song featuring Sean Kingston, so that's cool, I guess? If you weren't excited for the "Crank That" nostalgia, then you should be about that "Beautiful Girls" swag. And this song, entitled "Everybody Hoe," is just up there with the sweet songs of Kingston's past, as he sings "That's not your girlfriend / That's everybody hoe." Aww, how sweet, Sean. The best part about Kingston being involved is that it gives the listener a break from Soulja Boy.

This Soulja Boy mixtape was a lot less fun than the last one. I think the further I get in years from "Crank That," the more I hate it. I can't believe I used to like, nay, love that song. I guess we all have regrets. For some, it's that embarrassing bowl cut. For me, it's Soulja Boy. Yah, trick, yah.

-X-Prime, dropping the mic for now

@xprime_time

Just A Normal Day

Hey, Cheeseheads. How was your day? Mine was pretty normal. Because today was a normal day. Like, incredibly normal. Yep, nothing special happens in the middle of February, that's for sure. It's just a normal day. A normal Thursday with a normal Stack That Cheese post with no surprises.

The Good:

Problem & Iamsu! - Million Dollar Afro

I've gone over before how I often look at the covers and titles of mixtapes when trying to decide what mixtapes to look at. This, of course, applies to Million Dollar Afro. I've always greatly enjoyed afros. In fact, in fifth grade, I used to put a massive amount of mousse in my hair and I tried to shape my hair in the form of an afro. Needless to say, it was extremely unsuccessful. So now I just obsess over them, instead. And that led me to Problem & Iamsu!

If you've heard of Problem & Iamsu!, it's most likely because you're either a fan of theirs or you heard them on a Wiz Khalifa track. The duo from California is a frequent collaborator of Khalifa and was even featured on Cabin Fever 2 (the song, "Bout Me," is also featured on Million Dollar Afro). And after seeing Iamsu!'s afro, it's not hard to tell why. It's a pretty great afro. (Also, both smoke a vast amount of weed. That helps, too.) Just check it out in the title track's smokey music video.

The duo focuses on stoner music. As I've gone over in the past, stoner music is very hit and miss. Curren$y manages to make good stoner music, but Wiz has been struggling to do so as of late. And Million Dollar Afro is just as hit-and-miss.

"100 Grand" is one of those hits. For one, it has one of the harder beats on the album, compiled of hard bass lines, claps and synths that get the head bobbing. It's even nicer when Problem & Iamsu! and the features of Kool John and Juvenille go in on it. Problem and Kool John have the hottest verses as Problem spits, "Wood on the dashboard / All about the cash, board / Make the money fast forward / Make your bitch give me that like her ass forward" and Kool John raps, "We're fucking with my cash, man you're fucking with your life / I ain't saying I'm a theif, but a nigga fuck your wife."

T-Pain called. He wants his
auto-tune back. And some work.

The title track, shortened as "MDA," is one of the misses. All the potential is there, with an exciting beat that gets the listener pumped up and some nice verses from Iamsu! But the song features over-saturated Auto-Tune. If it was limited to just the chorus, or if it was 2010, it wouldn't be as bad. But the Auto-Tune manages to make its way into the verses and that's just too much auto-tune in 2013.

Million Dollar Afro is far from perfect and features a few straight-up stupid songs that are hard to listen to, but the mixtape is saved by the hits like "Knock It Off" and "Hunnits."

The Bad:

Krondon - Everything's Nothing

The bad category is always the hardest to decide. It's not like the re-dic-yu-lus because it's not pointing out the blatantly bad, and it's not like the good because it's not giving praise. Sometimes, it's just adequate--not good and not horrible. This is one of those times.

Krondon's Everything's Nothing is alright. That's really the perfect way to describe it. He does some things right--he focuses on real topics and the beats are for the most part pretty good--but he also does some things very poorly.

Take the song "I'm Moving" for example. Krondon's probably at his best in some aspects of the song. For one, it has a catchy, somber/sweet chorus of, "I'm moving all my work today." And the song is about moving all of the supplies you have in order to make more money to support those around you. It's a topic heard many times before, but quality nonetheless.

Should've read more of this guy.

But all of this is rendered pointless because Krondon just doesn't deliver in other aspects. Krondon's main challenge is rhyming, surprisingly. Of course he can rhyme, but he mostly sticks to simplistic singular syllable rhyme schemes that seem forced. "Diamonds are forever / And this rhymer's kind of clever / Watch him turn crack rocks into cheddar" is actually one of his better lines, but the delivery around it isn't smooth at all.

Imagine if Kendrick Lamar wasn't so complex in Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City. What if he didn't have a song where he was rapping from the perspective of a teenager? Or if he dropped the comic relief provided by his parents' phone calls? Or if he didn't take the role of those who left his life in "Sing About Me, I'm Dying of Thirst?" What would Good Kid, M.A.A.D. City be then? It's not just good enough to have an interesting backstory and some good beats. In fact, it might be harder. Because that means you have to truly deliver in order to tell your story as best as it can be told.

Guys like Problem & Iamsu! have it easier. They just rap about weed and have a good time. As long as you have good beats and your rhymes are good, you're set. But Krondon has to do more because he has more to say. He just doesn't do enough on Everything's Nothing.

The Re-dic-yu-lus:

G FELLA - St. Valentine's Day Massacre

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! You thought I forgot, didn't you? My confusing intro and title threw you off, didn't it? I would never forget about you, Cheeseheads. I may not have gotten you guys chocolate or flowers or a fancy candle-lit dinner, but I did get you a horrible mixtape. I know you all so well, don't I?

Sadly, St. Valentine's Day Massacre isn't a very good Valentine's Day mixtape. There's no love-making R. Kelly, Barry White-type songs. It's actually quite violent. You probably should have guessed that from the word "massacre" in the title, but if you didn't, now you know.

So, to make up for giving you a violent mixtape instead of a sexy one, I'll give you some cards. Stack That Cheese cares.

You know this mixtape is going to be bad as soon as the chorus in the first song, "Massacre," begins. "No more excuses, no more chances / No more frenemies, no more cancers," raps G FELLA quite violently. Excuse me? Frenemies? I've never heard anyone say "frenemies" more angrily than G FELLA does. And then he starts the first verse by saying, "Go down on you harder than a dinosaur bite." To be fair, dinosaur bites do go down pretty damn hard.

You know what's harder than dinosaur bites, though? Listening to G FELLA's song "City Boy." (That transition doe.) Think of the most famous song that has the phrase "city boy" in it. If you guessed "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey, you're right! Your prize is another awesome Valentine's Day card right after this paragraph! (And if you didn't guess correctly, well, you'll still see the card, but only because I'm nice.) Now imagine it poorly sampled and you'll have "City Boy."

"City Boy" is about how G FELLA apparently grew up in a small town where "everybody knows everybody." How he portrays it, though, is just crazy. "Ice makes your wrist numb / Gold digger chicks come / Neighborhood chicks come / Beat them gold diggers up," he says. He then goes on to talk about how the cops didn't mess with him and his crew and just basically lists the people who lived there, before ending the song by shouting, "That's the city! That's the city I live in!" He clearly lived in quite the city.

I honestly don't know what to say about G FELLA's St. Valentine's Day Massacre. It's honestly horrible and isn't even as laughable as some of the other re-dic-yu-lus mixtapes of Stack That Cheese past. With that being said, it still made my Valentine's Day more enjoyable, and I hope it made yours better, too, Cheeseheads.

-- Xavier Veccia, dropping the mic for now.

@xprime_time

Grand Opening

Welcome to the grand opening of ACRN's Stack That Cheese.

Before I go into the first column, let me just explain the point of this blog.

The name comes from “Hip Hop Saved My Life,” one of my favorite songs on Lupe Fiasco's The Cool, in which a young man escapes the hardships of his life through pursuing a career in hip-hop, which ultimately gets him away from his problems.

One of the most important things for an upcoming artist is to put himself out on the market on a mixtape. It's how rappers get their names known. Whether they hand them out after shows, send them to local radio stations, or just upload their mixtape onto a hip-hop website, most new artists have to start with mixtapes.

And this blog is all about covering those mixtapes. Whether they be good, bad, or just flat out “re-dic-yu-lus.”

Now let's kick this shit off.

The Good:

Cinos - #Chaoscontrol2

I was seconds away from choosing former Roc-A-Fella regular Freeway's Freedom of Speech, which is a good mixtape, when I happened upon Cinos' new mixtape.

Two of the biggest things I look for when searching for new artists to listen to are interesting album covers and album names.

Normally I try to stay away from mixtapes with a hashtag, but I couldn't help being drawn in by the picture that was with the title.

I'm not exactly sure what this drawing including the earth, an asteroid, the moon and a UFO means, but when scrolling down a page filled with covers of rappers trying too hard to look hard and scantily-clad women, something like this instantly stands out.

And as soon as I heard the production on “Black Lantern Zone,” I knew this mixtape was just as interesting as the cover attached to it.

The production throughout all of #Chaoscontrol2 is what really makes it so special.

Most of the production seems to be done by relatively lesser known producers, save a track produced by the always great and always trippy Clams Casino. But they all come through.

“Isis Tear Zone” has to be one of the best of the best produced, starting with a sample from a track off the soundtrack from the movie Final Fantasy: The Spirit Within, an unlikely place to find a sample, but producer 13^th makes it work. The track continues with a unique drum beat, piano and what sounds like a xylophone underneath the verses.

While Cinos' rhymes aren't anything too special, he's still good enough to not take away from the production behind his rapping. The topics he raps about are controversial and he can be a little cocky (“You're now witnessing the birth of a new God”).

The Bad:

Wiz Khalifa – Cabin Fever 2

Wiz Khalifa is one of the hottest, if not the hottest, rapper in the game right now. He's in countless commercials, he's constantly trending on Twitter and his upcoming album O.N.I.F.C. (Only Nigga in First Class) is easily the most anticipated album left in the year. But he's overrated.

Gather around kids, because I'm only going to explain this once.

Back in 2010, Wiz was at the top of the game. He was coming off two very good releases: his second album Deal or No Deal and his critically-acclaimed mixtape Kush and Orange Juice. But the shit hit the fan.

Wiz was signed to Atlantic, started singing his hooks, and hit it big with his number one single “Black and Yellow” as his native Pittsburgh Steelers reached the Super Bowl. This put him right in front of the public's eye. The underground rapper became as mainstream as mainstream can get almost overnight. And it was all downhill from there.

Now Wiz is just your typical stoner rapper, except it doesn't seem like he's even trying anymore.

Take his song from Cabin Fever 2, “Smokin' Drink.” It has a chorus in which he just repeats the title over and over again, and then he opens his first verse by reiterating that “I be smokin', I be drinkin'.”

And then there's “Ridin' Round” with frequent Wiz collaborator and 10Fest ditcher, Juicy J. It features such classy lines as “And I've been shittin' since before I could afford the plumbin'” on Wiz's part and “Make weed disappear, you believe in magic?” on Juicy J's.

Granted, mainstream rappers tend to not go as hard on their mixtapes since they have to focus so much on their albums. So hopefully, Wiz will show up on O.N.I.F.C. and make up for this unfortunate predecessor.

The Re-dic-yu-lus

Mr.44 – Welcome to Ohio

The re-dic-yu-lus category is going to be reserved for just a downright laughable mixtape every week. This doesn't mean it's going to be a big release, just the worst album I could get my hands on from that week.

And this week the honor goes to Mr.44.

Let me just list a few of my favorite lines:

“Bite you quick like an iguana.”

“Call me big papi / Or just holla at me.” (Yes, that's supposed to rhyme.)

“Fool, bless you, like an afterward sneeze.”

“A veteran, not a rookie, homie. I done did it.”

“Mister, mister fo-fo. O-H-I-O.”

“I can hear the money's falling from the street. I'm like zoom.”

“I'm having visions of a black Madonna / But she ain't black.”

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

There are plenty more crappy lines on this mixtape, and that's the Stack That Cheese guarantee.

Like in the title track, where Mr.44 just starts off by listing the many area codes of Ohio.

Or maybe in “Jealousy & Marijuana” where 44 tells a fascinating tale of “Two women / One named Jealousy, the other Marijuana.”

The beats are cliché, the features are mediocre, and of course Mr.44 is just plain shitty. But hot damn is it grade-A shit. 

-- Xavier Veccia, dropping the mic for now.

@xprime_time