Fat Trel and his Slutty Boyz have had a curious relationship with Lil’ B and his whole Blue Flame/Cooking era. Whether they were copying the infamous dance, or freestyling to “Wonton Soup”, they managed to provide a rare glimpse at more conventional ‘street’ based rappers toying with B’s formula as opposed to the more arty progeny that he would inspire in his wake. However, with Young Gleesh’s “School Boy”, we get the first possible glimpse at what happens when a ‘typical’ rapper embraces the ‘based freestyle’ formula with some intrigue.
In a surreal mess, work has now become homework, he is fresh like the first day of school (Possible Soulja reference?) and he is generally just the coolest guy as every rapper claims to be. However, the goofy swag-rap quality of it reinforces just how much of a blend of absurdist humor and regular rap shit it really is. The nasal delivery and giddy adlib outbursts definitely resemble something that crawled out of Blue Flame. You can’t even tell if he’s being a borderline parody artist like B is, or if he’s just dropping a small bit of humor into the greyscale world of D.C. trap life.
No word if this will appear on any new mixtapes from Gleesh. But it appears to suggest that his next project may be a defining moment for the Slutty Boyz as they continue to follow Trel to a hopefully prosperous future in the rap game.
Ladies and gentlemen, join us as we meet with the Miami-based rap crew of the future, Metro Zu. Hot of the newfound fame brought by their new “Mink Rug” tape (reviewed by NoJumper here) Catching up with rapper/producer Lofty305, we discussed his feelings on collaboration, art, the future of humanity, and the Surge movement. Trix cereal and LSD may or may not have been involved in the process of this interview.
Join us here at NoJumper as we catch up with rising rap sensation, GrandeMarshall. The 18 year old rapper has built a reputation for hot singles (including last year’s “Robert Earl”, recently reviewed by NoJumper), earning him a coveted opening act slot for A$AP Rocky. The Philadelphia-Born/DC-Based sensation took the time to speak with NoJumper about what separates him from the rest of the ‘trillwave’, from Philly’s other rap alumni, and anyone else in rap for that matter.
When was the last time that rap was funny and smart? Okay, no wait, Lil’ B happened, and he’s still being absurd and brilliant. Okay, no, but let’s be fair, aside from him, what else do you have? TDE are witty and bright, but they never really showcase their sense of humor adequately. Danny Brown’s funny sometimes, but he’s also really aggressive and misanthropic at other times, and the bi-polar swing can be a bit difficult. Odd Future is always about jokes, and definitely smart, but they don’t exactly flex their brains in public as much and they take to pretending to barf. The point is this; who in the world can say that they’re trying to be intelligent and hilarious as much as say, Metro Zu?
At the tail end of 2011, Philadelphia-born rapper GrandeMarshall slipped out a single that seems like a perfect reflection of his era. “Robert Earl”, named after the DJ who proclaimed he would ‘screw the world’, featured an energetic young man borrowing from the sounds of Houston, Memphis, and pretty much every inch of the world that produced a great rapper. For the more cynical, it would be easy to dismiss him as a product of the retromania-obsessed “Trillwave” movement spearheaded by Spaceghostpurrp’s Raiders and Rocky’s A$AP Crew. Certainly, he deftly maneuvers through the forgotten symbols of rap that kids now wave as banners without ever experiencing them when they were around… But there’s something compelling about how easily he flutters around. Whether he’s performing quick bursts of staccato speed that would make Kingpin Skinny Pimp proud, or boasting with his voice screwed down low to almost resemble E.S.G. in his prime, our star slides around with grace and poise. These flows fit GrandeMarshall like a glove, rather than sounding like a cheap mimic. The only issue is, it is very hard to get any sense of whom we’re really dealing with. If anything, “Robert Earl” is like a hurricane, massive walls of intensity on the outside, but one finds very little pulsing at it’s core. Criticisms aside, only time can tell if GrandeMarshall will prove to stand above the murky swarm of his record’s churning funk.
When Squadda Bambino proclaims at the start of “I’m On One Part II”: “The future is now man, it’s the motherfuckin’ present. You’re listening to the future right now in your motherfuckin’ headphones, man” the listener is already a quarter of the way through and about neck deep in L.W.H.’s first solo effort The Tape Hiss Hooligan. Squadda’s reference to tomorrow becoming today is especially apt because that’s exactly how the music on this album comes across: like transmissions from the future that combine both the familiar and the unfamiliar being received in concurrent aural waves. As busy and well, daunting as that sounds in metaphor, it actually makes for the most compelling music one can find on our blessed Internet. And although much can be said to discourage the use of micro-genres or blog-centric categorizations of music, I would like to offer a title to the type of music L.W.H., his collaborators, acquaintances, and some other totally unrelated young musicians are cooking up and serving on the regular: “Future Music”.The Tape Hiss Hooligan came out last year, in 2011. But you haven’t missed out if you only take your first listen after skimming this review. L.W.H.’s music is just so future-minded that you can’t be late getting to it. I guess that’s all really a pretty convoluted way of saying it’s timeless.
Join us at NoJumper as we interview Mr. Snubnose Frankenstein. Since last year’s “rappingassnigga” mixtape, we have seen Frankenstein’s profile continue to expand, recently scoring production credits all over Vince Staples new mixtape. Here, we discuss his influences, his career goals, and we discover the perks of being a rapper that nobody ever brings up!
Dear Reader, not long ago we at the NoJumper team had the distinct honor and pleasure of reviewing last year’s transmission from the great Khalil Nova, 808s Of Death. Today, after much negotiating and possibly getting involved in a plot to destroy several governments, we have the distinct honor and pleasure of debuting Khalil’s new project, the much-hyped Tha Black Layne Stayley. It should be said that this project contains music which might startle the average ‘Hip-Hop head’: its maker is a man with memories of the future. (Not the Freebandz kind.) Join us as we return to find our young antihero fighting his way through the digital haze which that music has trapped him in. As usual, we are in a dark place lit by neon-Neo-Geo hellish soundscapes, and only one of the brightest and most enigmatic young minds in rap as our guide. Certainly a wonderful way to proceed into a present filled with rumours of war, paranoia and threat of apocalypse.
For maybe the past year or so, Yung God has had a very troll-like existence in the community that follows everything that Brandon McCartney has done. He’s draped himself out in similar tattoos, abused every cliché of the cooking songs; he’s even earned the respect of fellow Lil’ B impersonator Deandre Way AKA Soulja Boy. His Ocean Gang lives in a sort of stunted little prism of antics, absurdity and blissed-out ignorance that current-day Based God seems too distracted to return to. So for some, Yung God is a blatant biter with no creativity, and for others, a decent substitute/placebo to wait out Brandon’s soul-searching delve of scattered mixtape experiments.
For the most part, Yung God’s victories have been truly minor. Earning the patronage of Soulja is a wonderful notion… But nowadays, it seems as if the majority of Tumblr has been ‘signed’ to SODMG. “Like Like Jesus” and the “Cailou” freestyle are also a showcase of Yung God’s humor and appeal, but there is an obvious undercurrent of him fine-tuning the Based/Cooking styles down into much more digestible formulas. On one hand, he’s much easier to take as a novelty swag rapper, and there’s a sort of hearty sense of humor but there’s little ‘nutrition’ to his songs.
In that regard, “Pretty Boy Heaven” is a startling divergence in the usual Yung God fore. Over a stark beat comprised of a sample from Paper Mario, Yung God begins the song with his breathless lisp to declare that “I’m not even going to raise my voice.” The verses are concerned with more of the same we’ve always served to expect; Girls loving him, his refusal to be tied down to a girl, self-obsession, etc. The adlibs are a hilarious collection of effeminate gasps, whooping, and even a sort of lullaby harmonizing attempt in the background. The real strength of this song however is in the hook; in a detached, isolated moment, Yung God starts off the chorus with the phrase “Take my last breath, you can turn me into ashes…”
In yet another method of his overt dependence on Brandon’s influence, it is this unnourished idea and pseudo-concept where “Pretty Boy Heaven” truly shines. Here, Yung God has taken the zeal and blissed-out mania of the Based culture to its logical conclusion; he is now so proud and in love with himself, that he appears to have developed some sort of blend of suicidal grandeur and Zen. In his longing for perfection and achieving “Pretty Boy Heaven”, Yung God is now in a state of deliriously giddy pride and ecstasy. In many ways, it almost feels like this song, with Yung God’s dandy-like attitude, serves as the antithesis to the hard retreat into gangster masculinity and frothing rage by his spiritual nemesis and fellow based sensation, Spaceghostpurrp, with his new “God of Black” material.
With a career as scattershot as his, it’s hard to say if this record will prove to be anything more than a happy accident from the Ocean Gang camp. Yet it’s safe to say that should Yung God perhaps connect the dots of his rambling sketches of material, he may serve as a relatively compelling artist, and perhaps a ‘son’ that Lil’ B could even accept as his own.
In 2011, the R&B genre found itself at a point of critical overload. New talent and reinvention was ever present. The disembodied fragile voice of Cassie was mutilated and disfigured across dancefloors all over the world, teen starlets became witch-like divas in order to give their careers a second wind, and cheap pop was turned into ammunition for a new avant-garde. In spite of all this new recent attention however, only a few new faces emerged. One was the young Odd Future Oddity, Mr. Frank Ocean. A surprising counter-balance to the cartoon violence of his ‘team, Ocean delivered a mixtape rife with tenderness, melody, and strong song-writing that put the former Def Jam castaway to the forefront of pop. And yet, there was one specter in R&B who nobody could shake.
Abel Tesfaye, also known as The Weeknd, first came to public knowledge after his fellow Toronto native Aubrey “Drake” Graham started exposing him to the world via Twitter. Early leaks, such as “What You Need”, “The Morning” and “Loft Music” were later included in his first ‘mixtape’, “House Of Balloons”. The mixtape was rife with critical baiting, such as the Siouxsie &The Banshees & Beach House samples, the James Blake-esque production of “What You Need”, and Abel’s songs dealing with themes of sexual abuse, drug addiction and an overall theme of decadence. But to be fair, it was hard to imagine anyone offering an equal in grasping for attention.
As 2012′s dawn peeks from over the hills of yesteryear, more new young rappers are poking their head out to bask in the sunlight. More than a few have managed to take their influences and spin them in ways that outsiders would find difficult to trace. One of them is Khalil Nova, a young man in his early 20′s from Atlanta. Like Tyler, The Creator and Spaceghostpurrp before him, he’s a producer with an eclectic style which looms over his vulnerable personality. A personality which is is embodied by the struggle within last year’s “808′s Of Death”.
It’s easy to see why Danny Brown declared “Khalil Nova got next!” While more and more bedroom rapper/producers are popping up out of the woodwork at an alarming rate, few of them have the immediacy in their production styles to stand out and arrest your attention. But on opener “Cloud Mover”, Khalil seduces the listener with a haze of soap-opera strings, low thudding bass, and melodies meant to pull at heartstrings. Throughout the tape, his sounds form a confusing array of realms to dwell in: whether on the murky sitar-tinged plod of “Combo”, the eski/R&B hybrid of “Freezer Bhudd” to the lo-fi could’ve-been-a-malnourished-Zomby-tune of “Internet Muzik” and the Juicy J gone cybernetic grind of “The Ultimate Track”. Khalil manages to merge the sounds of video-game bleeps from bits 8 to 32 with the bombast of modern trap production.
