ACRN Week Special

This week, ACRN is turning 42. That's crazy! Forty-two years of music have gone by in the span of ACRN's existence. I've been alive for less than half of that impressive run, and Stack That Cheese has been around for an even shorter amount of time. While it would be nearly impossible to figure out what were the best releases in the span of ACRN's 42 years, it's fairly plausible to be able to do that for Stack That Cheese's run. So, why not do that? Let's look back at the year thus far and hand out awards to the best and most re-dic-yu-lus mixtapes that have been covered in Stack That Cheese.

The Best:

This was extremely difficult to figure out. There have been a lot of quality mixtapes that I have covered in Stack That Cheese's relatively short existence--so much so that I felt I had to split up this category. Because mixtapes can come from much different circumstances, I figured it would only be fair to separate the major releases from the mixtapes that barely made a splash.

The Best Major Release:

OCD: Moosh & Twist - Back to the Basement

This is one of the newest "good" mixtapes and that means that this award could have been affected by my emotions surrounding it being fairly recent. Hell, I'm pretty certain that's the reason I still like this mixtape so much.

But it's still such a good mixtape. I wrote about why I liked it already, obviously. But I might as well explain why it beat out it's biggest competitors.

One of Back to the Basment's biggest competition was Action Bronson's Rare Chandelliers. As I said when I reviewed it, it was just so brutal. And in the best possible way. Action Bronson is just an overall scary person and it comes out on Rare Chandelliers.

This was the hardest to decide. For one, Rare Chandelliers by far has the best cover of any mixtape that I reviewed. How could you not love a .gif for a mixtape cover? Secondly, Action Bronson has one of the best Twitters of any rap artist. His randomness is up there with Tyler, the Creator. However, if the things I remember most about your mixtape are your cover and how it led me to some great late-night tweets, then there are probably some better mixtapes out there.

The other dark horse for this category was Hoodie Allen's return to quality rap on Crew Cuts. This one was much easier because as I was deciding just which mixtape was the best, I realized the song I go to most on Crew Cuts is the one featuring OCD. And if OCD was the best part of Crew Cuts, then a mixtape of only them must be great.

Best Underground Release:

Blake Allee - Televisionn

This one wasn't even nearly as hard. In fact, the reason I made this a category was because I didn't want to try to figure out whether I liked this mixtape better than Back to the Basement or not. It just sounded like a daunting task that I wasn't ready to conquer.

This one is easily Blake Allee's to lose. Televisionn is the most creative mixtape that I've listened to all year. The beats are so different than what anyone else is doing, his lyrics are riddled with clever wordplay and complex rhymes and it has a really intelligent theme.

Sure, there was competition. Rubixx's To the Third and Cinos' #ChaosControl2 were among the biggest standouts. But neither were nearly as creative as Televissionn, along with having their own problems. So, the fake award goes to Allee.

Biggest Disappointment:

Pusha T - Wrath of Caine

I already went over why I didn't like this mixtape all that much, so I'm not going to bore you with me explaining it again.

Instead I'm just going to say why it was so disappointing.

Pusha T has always been a good rapper, going all the way back to his Clipse days. Wrath of Caine, though, was really his first major solo release. After being such a great rapper beforehand, both as one-half of Clipse and in various guest spots, it was expected to be fantastic. Instead, it was just mediocre. 

Now, if this category was the worst mixtape, Pusha T wouldn't be even close. It was probably among the best of "the bad." However, it shouldn't have even been bad. He's better than this. But on Wrath of Caine, he didn't prove it.

Most Re-Dic-Yu-Lus:

Lil Poopy - Coke Ain't a Bad Word

Was there anyone else who even had a chance against Lil Poopy? He's like a mini French Montana who's not even that good at a normal size and after actual experience. That's perfect. The only thing cooler would be if 2 Chainz had a mini-me. Now that would be amazing.

Another thing to say for Poopy is that he got me hooked on these little kid rappers. They're hilarious! Screw Degrassi, little kid rappers are my new guilty pleasure.

Sorry, Drake

Most Based:

Lil B - Pink Flame

Ok, some one could have beaten Lil Poopy out for most re-dic-yu-lus. But that's not fair to Lil Poopy if I put him up against Based God. And I'm not about to pick on a little kid. (It's funny, because by judging an eight-year-old's rapping skills, I am kind of picking on him.)

This might have been the toughest category to judge over all. I mean, how does one even begin to judge a mixtape's basedness?

Well, for starters, it must be by Lil B. That narrowed it down to three.

After that, I was lost. What makes a Lil B mixtape so based? Is it his clever wordplay? His brilliant lyrics? His bumping beats?

After many days of intense thought, I realized that basedness is not a measurable quality. It's something that's just unexplainable, like the size of the universe or whether the chicken came before the egg.

So I left it up for the Based God to decide. I printed out a picture of each mixtape cover and threw them up in the air. And then, Pink Flame was struck by lightning, thus symbolizing that it was so based.

That and "Eat" is one of my favorite Lil B songs of all time. Thank you, Based God.

Spring Break

Spring break is so close I can taste it. The beach, the babes, the bodies of water. All of that's in Columbus, Ohio, right? But, as you know, the only thing with a higher priority than midterms and vacation is mixtapes. That's what Stack That Cheese is for.

The Good:

Blake Allee - Televisionn

I was going to make Cigarillo Music by Delaware-based group Base Gang my good mixtape this week. I had it all planned out about what I was going to say about it. "The album cover was just so indie, I had to listen." "The beats are so good, it's hard to stop listening to them." "Their flows and lyrics aren't the greatest, but the production more than makes up for it."

But then I came across Televisionn. Even though I already had a good mixtape picked out, I figured I could still give it a listen. If it was good, I'd download it. But good doesn't cover it. Televisionn is great.

That's not an overstatement. This mixtape is really that good. It might be my favorite since starting Stack That Cheese.

I imagine Marty McFly is responsible

Televisionn is a very futuristic mixtape. With largely electronic production and Allee's eye on what's to come, it's clear the Indiana rapper is focused on more than just the present.

While the beats are good, Televisionn's real power lies in Allee's brilliant lyrics. From listening to him spit, it's clear he has a different perception of the world. He just sees it in a different light, and it reflects in his lyrics.

Binary code in your bloodstream
can't be too healthy, though.

"Evolution" is one of the many examples. His words are layered over a rising electronic beat. And throughout the whole song, Allee is on his A-game. Just look at this string of rhymes about 25 seconds in. "'Til my speech is impeached / I will preach over beats / I will reach out of reach / 'Til I sleep with a sheet / Take a seat in a jeep / And retreat to the streets of Indy where I compete with elites." That's a Das Rascist level rhyme scheme, but serious. And throughout the song, he sprinkles his clever wordplay, such as "Losing all my memories / 'Tile music's my identity" and "You know I don't exist in books and library souls / Slit my wrists and I bleed binary code."

But he doesn't stop at "Evolution." Every single song has this same amount of brilliance. And it's mostly done by just him. The production, writing, rapping, everything. He gets a few features on here that, surprisingly, match up with him pretty well. It makes one wonder what's in the water in Indiana if these kinds of rappers are just all over there.

It's honestly hard to explain just how good Televisionn is. It's so much better to just listen it. It's well worth it.

The Bad:

Caskey - No Complaints

Congratulations to Caskey on becoming the first person in Stack That Cheese history to make it two consecutive weeks. Kind of. He was on Rich Gang: All Stars last week, and even though it was listed as Birdman's mixtape, it was still a compilation album, so I'm giving the honor to Caskey.

What's weird is that Caskey's song on Rich Gang, "FBGM," was one of the better ones on the mixtape. I actually like "FBGM" better than most of the songs on No Complaints. There's just something that's in "FBGM" that isn't on No Complaints.

Caskey is one of the newest signees to Young Money. He actually seems to be a little out of the ordinary for Young Mula, baby. Mostly because he has talent.

When Caskey raps, you can tell he has potential. His rhymes are pretty nice, his voice goes with the beat and he carries himself well. The only thing he's missing is flow.

Flow the iPod game probably
wouldn't help much.

Flow. That's all. If he had flow to accompany everything he does well, he might be in the good category. But that one thing makes you forget about everything he has going for him.

Take the song "Words." It starts off with just spoken word. If you do spoken word, you probably should have flow. (I'm assuming there's a less rap-like term for this with spoken word, but I'd rather stick with flow.) And yet his words seem to just run into each other, making it hard to distinguish what's important and when he wants to begin and end his thoughts. In spoken word, the flow has to serve the same purpose. But on "Words," that's all his rhymes are. Not a poem. Not art. Just words. 

It's too bad, because he carries a really heavy message for hip-hop, talking about, well, "nigga." "You can say cracker, but I can't say nigga / So we get into conflict when we both sip liquor," he spits. It's hard to find someone addressing that in a song.

That's what I'm talking about. He has so much going for him. If he just had the flow, he could be a good rapper. He's worth keeping an eye on, but he still needs to improve.

The Re-dic-yu-lus:

80 Bandz - Band Camp

Do you realize how many mixtapes are on datpiff? The answer is a lot. It shouldn't be hard to find a mixtape that re-dic-yu-lus in the sea of mixtapes that is datpiff. But today, it was nearly impossible. Every mixtape I found ended up just being bad. Sure, I thought about just saying they were re-dic-yu-lus, but I know how much ending up with the "re-dic-yu-lus" label on a mixtape can ruin one's career (Have you heard from Kyoto since this? Granted, you probably didn't hear from him before then, but still.) So I kept on searching.

And that searching paid off. Band Camp might be one of the most re-dic-yu-lus mixtapes I've ever heard. It's everything I could have ever wanted. Bad production? Check. Poor lyrics? Check. Features from little kids? Oh my God, check!

Lil Poopy will always be my favorite
pre-pubescent pussy popper.

There's just something about shitty lyrics rapped by a high-pitched preteen that I love. Ever since Lil Poopy, I've just been obsessed with pre-pubescent pussy poppers.

Before I continue, let me just clarify that 80 Bandz is not who I'm referring to with all this "pre-pubescent" stuff. He's definitely not very old, but his voice has at least dropped. It's his frequent collaborator Lil Duke that I'm now obsessed with.

Don't worry, 80 Bandz is plenty bad. "Fuck Em All" is one of many examples that back that up. In it, 80 Bandz overpowers the hood-rat beat by turning his vocals all the way up and not even following the beat. I can't even follow him.

But as soon as Lil Duke shows up on the same track, I'm suddenly more okay with the crappiness. His rapping style is mostly just yelling with his high voice and saying "nigga" a lot. And it's kind of adorable. I just imagine a little kid with braces and a squirt gun trying to be hood in the booth.

There are even features from other youngins! Like Loudpack! And Lil Budda ("I kill your whole family"). This is like the Cruel Summer of elementary school. I wish my elementary alma mater had a rap group. But I guess St. Monica's just wasn't as hood as 80 Bandz and Lil Duke.

-- Xavier Veccia, dropping the mic for now.

@xprime_time