Weekly Fix #32 ('20)
Welcome to the Weekly Fix, where I go over everything that I’ve listened to that has come out within the past week. I’ll give a little blurb about the project/single with my feelings on it thrown in there, throw some descriptors and other artists names to give you an idea what the project/single is like, and link to all applicable streaming services where you can find the music. The bottom section will be devoted to projects that have Bandcamp or online webstore links, to give a greater highlight to those artists who you can support directly. Click here to see a list of previous Fixes.
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Welcome to a new week of music, one where I’ve shaken up the formula a bit. Some of you have seen by now I’m sure, but I’ve created a new post on Tha Soup Dude’s Kitchen: Singles. In addition to splitting the loose songs into it’s own content, I’ve also slightly revamped this post here, the Weekly Fix, to more closely align with what I believe my mission here is.
I’ve done a lot of thinking, and I came to the conclusion that y’all listening to this music is so much more important that anything I can say about it. I’m not going to tell you my words aren’t important, but I’m humble enough to know that my place is to make sure that the true artists are getting to y’all over myself. So, to better help y’all actually get this shit into your ears, I’ve redone my Weekly Fix process, starting with the separation of the singles.
The Singles posts will include direct links to those songs from my page, allowing you to listen somewhat seamlessly By separating them, rather than having a massive block of text with EVERYTHING that came out that week, I can give you a more manageable pool of music to sample with every post. This makes the Weekly Fix more digestible, hopefully encouraging more listening of the music.
As for what I’ve done with the Weekly Fix, it boils down to highlighting and supporting more artists that self-release or release on websites like Bandcamp. I still have a whole host of traditionally streaming-friendly content from the more mainstream crowds, but any artist that has an option to buy directly from this will be put in my Soup’s Hot Deals section, where I’ll detail the “Investment” cost, giving all of the other context I normally would on a post like this. There will also be a lot more embedded players in this section, so, like the Singles, you can more easily see how something sounds immediately.
ANYWAY, this week gave us a lot of great shit on the project level: Aminé and DaBaby dominated the mainstream section, while a surprisingly active week of underground releases from such prodigies as al.divino and the Dump Gawd himself, Mach-Hommy. I also finally got a chance to get around to the RJ Payne project, something I regret not doing sooner.
And we have another packed schedule for this upcoming week as well: SmooVth, Boldy James & Jay Versace, and Ransom & Nicholas Craven are all dropping, as well as another 03 Greedo project. Come look at everything that I see coming out over on my Upcoming Heat page, a great tool to keep up with new releases in the music world.
Thanks to all of you readers, I have a purpose out here in this big world of music. I thank all of you who have given feedback, anyone who’s shown appreciation to what I’m doing here, and any artist who’s given me the shoutout for my work. Everyone is appreciated, but I challenge all of you listeners out there like myself who come to Tha Soup Dude’s Kitchen to find new music to consider supporting these artists directly if you can. These people put so much effort into this work, and to return the favor for killer music is the least we can do. Peace.
Here’s a link to the Week #32 (’20) Playlist
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Here’s a link to the Week #32 (‘20) Singles
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Here’s a link to the Week #32 (’20) Art Appreciation post
-----STREAMING PROJECTS-----
Aminé – Limbo
By mixing the more laid-back traditional hip-hop tones (albeit with a distinct left-field slant) of his debut album Good For You and the modern instrumental palette of ONEPOINTFIVE, Aminé has evolved into one of the most well-rounded and uniquely sharp members of his class. A tight 14 tracks, all with solid song topics, most sticking with you well after listening, and with no time at all to dwell on half-baked ideas make this one of the more complete albums that’s come out this year. While on previous releases Aminé comes across as an amateurish underdog, on this album he’s come to a musical maturity, speaking on many more topics that flesh out Aminé as a human being. The strength that he’s showing as an artist is on full display here, being more than capable of holding his own solo, but bringing in guests like JID, Injury Reserve (with a harrowing verse from Groggs in light of his death… that talk of his daughter really got to me), and an absolute BANGER of a track with both slowthai and Vince Staples, show that his selective nature of guests pays off in the end. Leaps and bounds ahead of his last project, a must-hear album from a musician who has become entirely in tune with his craft. Fans of modern Tyler, the Creator, GoldLink, and Anderson .Paak will love this record.
Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music
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DaBaby – BLAME IT ON BABY (Deluxe)
Following the trend of other deluxe albums, DaBaby has basically come through with an entirely new project for us to munch on. Ten tracks, features from Stunna 4 Vegas (twice), Gunna, and Young Thug, and a great spread of beats make this addition to the original record a welcome one. I will say that there is a lot more time devoted to the melodic side of DaBaby’s character, still being able to rap quickly and bandy off those triplet flows while simultaneously singing. It’s an interesting mix of style that leads to a lot of fun moments, the highlight of which is the song PEEPHOLE. I wish that DaBaby had pulled a Gunna on this one and integrated the new tracks into the original project, as it would have given it new life in a way that it desperately needed. All of us DaBaby fans need to stick together and support this one, and anyone out there who’s a fan of the Migos, Lil Baby, or Trouble will be right at home here.
Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music
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V Don, Sauce Heist, ANKHLEJOHN, & Da$h – Too Late 4 Tears
Very short project, with really only three new tracks to speak of; most of the material here are remixes and alternate versions to the three tracks in question. It is a very diverse trio of artists that have come together on this EP, produced entirely by V Don, and while I don’t necessarily think that the styles mesh together all that well from a rappers standpoint, all three of them fit the darkness and rawness of the beats perfectly. This is despondent, chamberish boom-bap, with provocative samples that are very in-your-face with their loops and sound-levels, a scene that V Don has helped build from his Harlem-based operation. Brooklyn’s Sauce Heist, DC’s ANKHLEJOHN, and New Jersey’s Da$h all come together with three different styles, with varying takes on insanity and severity on the microphone. Sauce is more of a rapper’s rapper, drawing from those older influences to deliver straight hip-hop, and while Da$h brings his own brand of gutter brutality, it’s ANKHLEJOHN that will demand the most attention with his impish yelling that follows a very loose, almost non-existent flow. Dark hip-hop fans, like Griselda and all them, will find this enjoyable.
Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music
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NLE Choppa – Top Shotta
I expected a lot more from this project if I’m being real with y’all; this album isn’t as much of a mission statement of an artist as much as it is two separate styles fighting for ultimate supremacy. One side of this is NLE’s deadly aggressive and slap-tastic trap music that plays heavily off of Memphis and Florida rappers, something his voice is just so amazingly suited for that I just can’t get enough of it: tracks like the Shottas Flow 3-5, Camelot (which for some reason is the unremixed version without Gotti and Moneybagg), and Who TF UP in My Trap really get the party started with killer flows and vocal performances. But the other side of the coin are the super melodic more emotional tracks, where Choppa sounds like he’s merely parroting other rappers like YoungBoy NBA and Quando Rondo. It’s not that tracks like Paranoid and Depression are necessarily bad (and Narrow Road, while being one of these kinds of tracks, is undoubtedly one of the best on the record), it’s just that they take up space on an already spacious record of 20 tracks, space that could have been filled with more explosive material. People who like Lil Pump and Smokepurpp will find tracks to love on here, as well as those fans of NBA and Lil Tjay, and maybe even some older fans of Three Six Mafia and Trick Daddy will keep a track or two.
Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music
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Lil Keed – Trapped on Cleveland 3
The record didn’t quite click with me at first, but as I listened to it more I was hearing the ways Keed relates to the beats on here (which are almost always solid) and figured it’s a project that is really banking on the flow of one track into another. The vibes are very similar across the entire thing, so while each track is at least fun to listen to, it occasionally reaches up into some really great stuff like Trapatlanta and Zaza. Keed’s greatest strength is his oddity, and while he does indeed borrow pretty much everything strange about Young Thug and distills it into a potent formula, it’s a style of rapping that has so many possibilities to make your own impression that I rarely felt like “Thug could have done that better”. For sure I thought sometimes “Thug could do that *too*”, but I think looking at Keed side-by-side with Thug (which is what this project is clearly going for) is an important step for him to take in his career. If you’re looking for that Thugger music of the old days, with the pipsqueak voices and unpredicatbles flows and one-liners, you’ll definitely like this. Fans of Gunna and Lil Baby should also give this a try, especially you Baby fans.
Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music
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-------SOUP’S HOT DEALS-------
Mach-Hommy – Mach’s Hard Lemonade
Investment: $99.99
Alright, so I know what y’all are thinking: “THIS is the first thing he recommends that we buy? This shit is 100 dollars”. I recognize the optics here, and while I admit that I probably won’t be dropping a Franklin to cop a Mach-Hommy cassette, I think it’s important to acknowledge that Mach considers his work to be true art, and the money he’s asking for is for something that he spent time on to make timeless. Does he achieve this? In a sense, yes, this is a fantastic project with more animated rapping performances from Mach that I’ve heard recently. He’s not nearly as hazy and strange as he normally is, making him a bit more relatable in his persona and rap-style: anyone who’s taken the time to understand what MF DOOM or Earl Sweatshirt is *really* saying will definitely appreciate the ways that Mach-Hommy weaves between beats at his own tempo, referencing what seems to be completely unrelated concepts to get across ideas of societal injustice, the state of hip-hop at the moment, and how much you as a rapper are nothing compared to him. If this sounds like familiar motif, that’s because it is, but it never feels like Mach is retreading old ground, but instead forging his own completely unique lane that people will be studying for years to come. Is that worth $111.11? That’s up to y’all, and ya know maybe dropping some dough on what is essentially history isn’t too crazy after all…
=>Mach’s Website<=
Apple Music/Tidal
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Starker & al.divino – Secrets
Investment: $78.10
Again, you’re staring at your screen like “do *what* now?” This goes back to what I was saying with Mach earlier, that divino considers his work art, and like any other medium the price is irrelevant in comparison to the artistry. However, the divino/Nack camp is notoriously stingy with releases on streaming services, so listening to this album might be a little difficult. As someone who has listened to this project, I’ll say that I’m in love with the complete insanity that both Starker and divino bring to this project. al produces the entire thing, and the sampling choices and his intense and brash loops can be both incredibly soulful and gut-bustingly hard, and a handful of times he comes down from his lofty perch to drops some jewels on a verse in his one-of-a-kind torrent. Starker is another rapper that has been very visible over the past few months on features and projects, coming through on Secrets with some of his best performances yet. He takes a lot of cues from divino, but I also feel like he structures his bars more carefully, and his wordplay revolves more around the loose association of someone like Ghostface Killah rather than supreme mathematics or references. There are a couple moments on the record where the technical skill displayed is quite impressive, the low mumble of his voice gives this overwhelming feeling to his presence. The naming of the tracks all being increasingly longer takes on “Shh”, and that album cover which is like an abstract portrait of Mathematics, all contribute to making this project one of the more bold and mysterious of this year.
=>Bandcamp<=
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RJ Payne – He’s a Fuckin Animal
Investment: $20.00
RJ Payne has been hyping this project up for months now, morphing from a proper studio album into a collection of collaborations with a whole host of RJ’s peers that attempt to match his ruthlessness. To their credit a few of them most definitely do: we have both Gorilla Nems and this dude named Swave Sevah on the track Fuck Ya Life absolutely demolishing their verses (I’ve never heard of Swave before, but god damn is his voice one of the most terrifyingly awesome things I’ve heard in hip-hop in a while, shit reminds me of the first time I heard RJ himself on Benny’s Dirty Harry), Mickey Factz spitting just that, EIMG affiliate Sunnie Blac killing two different features (I did wish that Da Fever was on here too), Ransom, Freeway, and the list goes on an on. Every track on here, besides having a killer feature from another talented spitter, contains a fantastic verse from RJ Payne to go along with it. It’s a true testament to the power of the competitive spirit that every track on here sounds like he’s trying to outdo his guests on every occasion, and sometimes it’s not clear who gets the best of him and who doesn’t because everything is such a high quality. You’re buying directly from RJ, and supporting some of the most street-level music out today. Jadakiss, DMX, Griselda, Meek Mill, and Dark Lo are artists that are either inspires or are inspired by RJ’s music, so study up, get ready to be assaulted by some violent music, and go out there and buy this shit.
=>RJ’s Website<=
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Supreme Cerebral – Loose Change
Investment: $10.00
This guy entered my radar after he killed a feature on the Big Turks album from last year, and since then I’ve enjoyed everything he’s put out so far. He has a beat selection palette that runs through modern minimal sampling choices, and older 2000’s era Wu-Tang beats, with larger-than-life vocal samples bringing these older production methods back into the spotlight (I mean, how often do you hear such a bold Queen sample like you do on the track I’ve Paid My Dues?). I hear a lot of Wu-Tang influence on the microphone as well, with Supreme Cerebral hitting a lot of the same notes as someone like Ghostface Killah would, a loose association of vague ideas coming at you in a stream of conscious avalanche of words. Cerebral does have a much deeper voice than Ghost; I think he sounds a lot like the Sunz of Man member 60 Second Assassin, with the snarling aggression hitting you hard whenever he gets on to spit. The people he brings on to the project bring a lot of the same energy, with Jay Royale, Codenine, Rasheed Chappell, and Napoleon the Legend rounding out a very stacked and solid feature-list. Like a lot of those early-Wu-Tang affiliate albums, this project is also long, and whi8le not every track is as memorable as the last, I think it’s a very complete effort that will keep me fed for a while. Again, and I can’t street this enough, Wu-heads will love this.
We got two al.divino projects this week, one being a production effort with New York’s Starker, and this one being a solo-rapped effort. Kataklizm is the perfect entry into divino as a rapper, showcasing a lot of his quirks and raw nature on the microphone without throwing you in the deep end of his typically abstract production style. A lot of this has to do with the work behind the boards by Toronto’s premier beatmaker Futurewave, who comes through with a straightforwardly hip-hop (at least in comparison to the music that usually comes out of Lynn, MA these days) set of beats. They knock, have fantastic sample choices, and are dark and brooding enough that divino doesn’t feel completely removed from the vibes. For everything that divino is a rapper, I think uncompromising is the most accurate description, hitting you with his shouted flow regardless if the instrumental is more laid back or more of a noisy romp. There are references to the occult, braggadocio, 5 Percenter ideologies, vague references to celestial topics, and completely random word association that sounds sick for the ways he can put together topics that have nothing to do with each other. While there are very few features (which isn’t too much of a problems because none of the solo tracks break 3 minutes), the ones we do get are phenomenal: Estee Nack kills two verses back to back, Futurewave’s fellow Torontonian Daniel Son gets some shine on the back end of Outdoorsman, and my man Rome Streetz demolishes an appearance on Worship shoulder-to-shoulder with Nack. Anyone who’s heard a divino/Nack release in the past an thought “this is too much for me” needs to give this album a try, it may give you that spark to try out some of their other music.
Futurewave’s Website
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