Cyhi The Prynce, Buddy, Money EDD

The Good:

Cyhi The Prynce - Hystori: Black History Project

Cyhi The Prynce is so commonly recognized as the most underrated G.O.O.D. Music artist that it's easy to forget he deserves more recognition. If he's getting recognition on the message boards, isn't that enough?

Then you listen to the latest Cyhi project and you remember that he's low-key one of the best rappers in the game and deserves to be treated like one.

Hystori is largely a socially conscious album that pays tribute to great African Americans that helped pave the way for men like Cyhi. What's interesting is that he seems to pay tribute to actual activists through song titles while mimicking black musicians through the production, which was overseen by Mr. G.O.O.D. Music himself, Kanye West.

This can be heard as soon as the first track, "Huey," starts, which sounds like Yeezy got to Hova's "Hard Knock Life." In the song, Cyhi sounds an awful lot like Kanye, especially when he delivers the slightly egotistical bars that you can't even be mad at because they're kinda true, like "So next time you say, 'The A' got no lyricists' / I just think you gotta taste this exquisite shit." Plus, everyone's favorite Chicago gangster, King Louie (they call him Tony), comes through for a downright dirty verse.

"Basquiat" is another clear allusion to black art, both in the physical sense and the musical sense. The beat samples "It Takes Two" by Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock while the lyrics pay tribute to the artistic integrity of graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. It's an interesting combination and it might be meant to show the difference between the two sides of art. What's really mind-blowing--if it's intentional, that is--is that Basquiat died in 1988, the same year "It Takes Two" was released. Cyhi is a clever rapper, but he's taking it to a whole new level on this one.

Cyhi didn't forget about his ancestors, either, as shown on "Mandela," where The Prince raps over African tribal drums in honor of the late South African activist.

Ultimately, Cyhi compares himself to some of these great activists and musicians. Sure, on paper that sounds like a bit much. But when listening to Hystori, it seems completely feasible. And with Cyhi's first actual album currently in the works, Hystori is just the beginning.

The BadPharrell:

Buddy - Idle Time

Kendrick Lamer, Miley Cyrus, Robin Thicke, Sir Michael Rocks, Asher Roth, Casey Veggies and Freddie Gibbs. What do all these artists have in common? They all probably owe some favor to Pharrell and decided to pay him back by being featured on Buddy's debut mixtape.

That's right--the Compton native is lucky enough to have this all-star lineup on his first ever mixtape. How, you ask? He probably sold his soul to Pharrell. But if Pharrell has taught as anything, it's that being able to work with the Neptune is much more rewarding than any soul.

What's even crazier than the list of features is how long Idle Time has been in the works. Pharrell's little Buddy has been working on this mixtape for over three years. If only Pharrell spent that much time on his hat choices. HEYO! Pop culture references!

That being said, every year was well worth it. Smokey the Bear was able to craft a pop rap masterpiece for Buddy, and that should be huge as the West Coast rapper goes forward.

However, that doesn't mean this is good actual rap. Don't get me wrong, I love Pharrell and couldn't be happier that he has become one of the most influential people in the music industry. But, he's come a long way from the mastermind behind some of hip-hop's biggest acts and has since drifted heavily into Billboard Top 100 territory.

That's all good for Pharrell & Co., but when listening to an artist like Cyhi The Prince right before Buddy, Idle Time seems much too shallow.

"Smoke Signals," which is produced by Pharrell and features Miley, is an extremely catchy song that properly layers the Queen of Twerk underneath Buddy's vocals to give the song a bit of a soulful feel. However, when getting down to it, it's just about getting high with a girl.

These problems become even more evident when Buddy is put side-by-side with hip-hop elites like Lamar and Sir Michael.

"Agitated," which is especially notable for the Cool Kids reunion between Sir Michael and producer Chuck Inglish, just makes Buddy look foolish. While Buddy's rhyming with repetition, Michael has consecutive bars with the same rhyme scheme without repeating himself once. 

And Kendrick's verse on "Staircases" makes the metaphors in Buddy's verse seem like it was written by a child. Hell, Kendrick even spells out his usage of metaphors when he raps, "This rapping's just a metaphor and I deserve a medal for / Writing another metaphor, about ambition," and even that is more complex than Buddy. Lonely Island was a better fit for Kendrick than this youngin'. 

Idle Time accomplishes exactly what it wanted: to be catchy without much effort. And the large amount of features is enough to make the mixtape tolerable. But ultimately, this is more pop than rap, which isn't what hip-hop mixtapes are all about.

The Re-dic-yu-lus:

Money EDD - Scrilla Season

Here's a list of things this mixtape does right:

1. Uses the term "scrilla."

And that's it. I don't know why, but I've always just really liked the term "scrilla" to describe money. Same with "guap." I should really start using them more...

Sorry, I was just trying to distract myself from the actual mixtape, Scrilla Season. Good title, bad content.

One of the things that annoys me most about Money EDD (is it "Ee Dee Dee" or "Ed?") is that he thinks a hook just has to be one semi-cool sounding sentence repeated consistently. This seems to be a problem with a lot of rappers these days, but Double Dee over here takes this to an extreme. Actually, scratch that. He's not Double Dee. If he's anyone from Ed, Edd & Eddy, it's definitely Eddy. He even kind of looks like him. 

Ha! Look at that! I was kind of kidding but he actually does kind of look like an older Eddy. Even the big ears. Now EDDy has done two things right with Scrilla Season.

Sorry, I have ADD when it comes to EDD. Hot damn, I'm on a roll. But back to this whole screaming a shitty hook thing. "Floating" is a good example of this. The hook switches off between "I'm riding around witchyo girl" and one line where EDDy just sings really horribly. And then the verse starts and, to his credit, EDDy does manage some semi-decent rhymes. However, the quality is so subpar and the annoying phaser synth beat can really get on a writer's nerves.

Looking back, this looks kinda weird

And actually, doesn't this whole mixtape kind of look like something Eddy would do? I could just imagine him asking Double Dee to help out with production, but then he'd refuse, so Eddy would go to Ed, but he would do such a bad job that Double Dee would have to step in. And then they'd try to sell it to get jaw breakers, but no one would buy it. Poor Eddy.

Listening to this production, it sounds much more Ed than Double Dee. The beats are usually just a collection of boring synths or overly simple instrumentation. There's also a large amount of really stupid Auto-Tune that this writer can't stand.

Actually, the more I think about this, the more I realize this mixtape is worse than anything the Eds could come up with. Even Plank could do a better job at a mixtape than EDD. Sorry, EDD, but you're not making any scrilla off Scrilla Season. No jaw breakers for you.

Post 11Fest Edition

I've mentioned Kendrick Lamar's newest album multiple times on Stack That Cheese. I love the thing. So when I found out Lamar was coming for 11Fest, I just about cried. So, to celebrate his recent appearance at 11Fest, I decided to dedicate a blog to him.

The Good:

Rich Kidd - In My Opinion

When I saw the title of In My Opinion, I was expecting to hear a weak album. The name just screams cockiness and a lack of creativity. And it was by some dude named Rich Kidd, I was even more put off. But then I heard it.

Rich Kidd doesn't have the most meaningful lyrics all the time, but his flow is ridiculous. With a deep voice and a quick delivery, he manages to make every song better.

And that's another thing about Rich Kidd--he self-produced all of In My Opinion. And it's very well produced, taking in multiple different influences to create a clearly unique mixtape.

Take "On My Face" for instance. It has African drums turning to an electronic breakdown before combining both of them. This makes for a crazy beat. It's really just a journey, never knowing exactly what comes next.

This also happens to be one his most meaningful songs, admitting just how hard he's been having it while trying to pursue his career. Really makes me think about his name.

Rich Kidd must've called in the Dream Girls.

Even his interludes are extremely interesting. The interlude "Can't Buy You Love" is probably one of the most intriguing, having a lengthy chorus to begin it with a Supremes-mixed-with-Aretha-Franklin group repeating, "Money can't buy you love." That made me think twice about his name.

Before I listened to In My Opinion, I didn't think I would like his mixtape. How stupid do I feel? Not only was he a pretty creative rapper, but an even more creative producer. And he had great flow and pretty good rhymes, too. Just teaches you never to judge a book by its cover, kids!

The Bad:

Kendrick Lamar - Hub City Threat: Minor of the Year

That's right, Kendick Lamar came out with a mixtape just days after 11Fest. But in non-Kendrick fashion, it's absolutely horrible. It sounds like he digressed to his 16-year-old self again. One of the cans thrown on stage must have hit him in the head and made him a bad rapper.

Psych! While Hub City Threat is a new release from the Compton artist, it's not a new mixtape. This was actually 16-year-old Kendrick Lamar's mixtape that was just discovered and released to the general public. And let me tell you, age has been very good to Kendrick.

You know the song "Backseat Freestyle?" You know, the one where Kendrick pretends to be 17 again and freestyles? And you know how it would be really bad if he was being serious, due to the fact that the premise is that of him being able to "fuck the world for 72 hours?" Well, imagine a whole mixtape of that--a serious 16-year-old being ratchet as hell.

It has exactly what you would expect from a 16-year-old, too. It has a couple songs with the beats from other, more popular songs of the time, such as "Go DJ" and "Drop It Like It's Hot." The latter is actually pretty entertaing, like a more rap-based version of Snoop Dogg's version. But when it features a chorus of "For my niggas that know right, K-Dot is hot," then it's hard to actually take him seriously. 

And his songs are very clearly written by a 16-year-old. They're sex-fueled, alcohol-fueled and drug-fueled, just like any teenager's thoughts.

It's an interesting listen, though. Knowing what Kendrick is now--a poetic master of storytelling--it's astonishing to think that he was once not awesome. And also, with good kid, m.A.A.d city being Kendrick's anti-drug epiphany when he was 17, it gives the listener a look into Lamar's life before it all.

He's actually not horrible, though. As far as teenagers go, he's pretty good. His voice sounds more like a young Juelz Santana and his flow is pretty interesting. It's just unsettling knowing how little of his potential he was living up to at the time. Thank Based God he's living up to him.

The Re-dic-yu-lus:

Young g da beast - The Competition

Names like Young g da beast are exactly why I write Stack That Cheese. It's so beautifully bad that it's perfect. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if there's another Young g da beast out there, which makes it even better.

And it makes me even happier when the rapper is just as bad as his name. And Young g makes me very happy.

Speaking of "Backseat Freestyle," Young g has a cover of it entitled "Backseat Gstyle." What's even crazier than the title is that Kendrick purposefully sucking is better than Young g actually trying. For one, Young g is almost incomprehensible. He also copies a lot of Kendrick's transitions, but just follows those transitions with much worse lines. Such as his line, "I got 25 lighters on my dresser, yes sir / That old-school mix got a nigga feeling player." And that was actually supposed to rhyme.

He also covers Tyga's "Rack City." And once again, Young g is incomprehensible and worse than the original.

But Young g also has some original songs. Such as "mind state og." The beat is alright, but a little too bubbly for Young g's style. Young g's flow doesn't even match up with the song. I wish I could quote a bad line by him, but I don't think you understand how hard it is to hear him. He's that bad.

I didn't really expect anything better from a guy named Young g da beast. Okay, I at least thought he would know how to work recording equipment and wouldn't rap while playing chubby bunny. But no, Young g couldn't even do that.

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

Let's Get Ig'nant

Wazzup, Cheeseheads? You wanna know wazzup with me? I've been sick all week, totally unmotivated and not looking forward to finals week one bit. But I don't want your sympathy. No, no, no. What I want is to just mess around. I just want to have fun. And the best way to have fun is to go ig'nant to some ig'nant rappers. So with this post, you will not find one good rapper, just rappers who make me feel ig'nant. (If you're counting at home, that's already four uses of "ig'nant" used in this post. I'm not saying this post has to turn into a drinking game, but if it does, that would be pretty freaking awesome.)

The Good (a.k.a. The Best of the Ign'ant):

Kid Ink - Rocketshipshawty

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):

Tyga - 187

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):

Papoose - Most Hated Alive

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.

@xprime_time