Weekly Fix #51 ('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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Merry Christmas everyone. Please, if you’re with some loved ones, put this shit down for a minute and go spend some time with those guys (or do it over Zoom or FaceTime or whatever); this post will be here forever, come back to it later if you need to. Personally, I’m glad all of this shit is almost over. Now I have to get my Album of the Year rollout in order….

This week had a couple of heavy hitters as opposed to a waterfall of projects, with standout appearances from Ransom & Nicholas Craven, Iceberg Theory & August Fanon, Lil Wayne, and a deluxe version of From King To a God from Conway the Machine.

I’m a bit late on this one, but all I know about last night is that Playboi Carti actually dropped. Besides that, I’m pretty in the dark, but still stay tuned for next week to see some new Flee Lord and 38 Spesh coverage.

There’s one more week left in 2020 and I can’t even begin to believe it. This year has flown by so quickly for me, a rush of events and, most importantly, new music. I would like to thank every artist that makes this endeavor so worthwhile, every one of my readers who fucks with me and tunes in every week, and everyone in my life who appreciates the time commitment that something like this can be. It’s never easy, and it’s not without its stressful moments, but at the end of the day it is all worth it if someone picks up an album they wouldn’t have tried out otherwise. Peace to everyone and all of their loved ones today.

Here’s a link to the Week #51 (’20) Playlists

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Here’s a link to the Week #51 (‘20) Singles

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Here’s a link to the Week #51 (’20) Art Appreciation post

-----STREAMING PROJECTS-----

Ransom & Nicholas Craven – Crime Scenes

Cover Artist: Manuel “Cep” Concepcion

These guys are unstoppable, truly, and they seem to only be getting better. I remember back on the first Director’s Cut tape, one that I admittedly passed over whenever it first came out, that I felt like there was *something* there between them, that more time and collaboration could lead to something fascinating, and it’s been so satisfying to see that transcendent relationship come to fruition. After all this time, Nicholas Craven has tailored his beats to be louder, more attention grabbing, and bolder statements of sampling, utilizing very prominent vocal and instrumental samples that, despite its relative eclecticness in comparison to some of his contemporaries like The Alchemist and Daringer, has an identifiable sound, a soul and an attention to detail that you can identify as “the Craven sound”. But what really unlocks the potential of these beats is Ransom, who *is* the lyricist of the year, and I say that in a year that is absolutely crowded with monsters of rapping who might otherwise take the throne from him; his bars are truly immaculate, coming with some of the most mind-bending wordplay that you will find in hip-hop, a steady flow bringing you clever turns of phrase, metaphors, allusions, and bold-faced gangster truths. I could list out bars for you to take in but you need to listen to this one to be able to experience this with the vibes of the instrumentals, one of the rare rapper/instrumentalist duos where the final product is more than the sum of its parts, hell it’s DOUBLE the sum, working perfectly in every way. Crime Scenes is the fifth project between the two in 2020, sitting about in the middle in terms of length in comparison to some of their other works (and about even in terms of quality, and that’s to say they are all excellent), with the biggest difference being that this album utilizes many more features that most of those projects, featuring verses from Stove God Cooks and Che Noir on a track, and capping off with a huge posse cut from some of the best in the underground: Rome Streetz, Flee Lord, Rigz, and Eto. There isn’t much more to say about this project that I haven’t already laid on heavy with their past two releases, but know that this is essential listening for anyone that values rapping and sampling as art forms. If you fuck with guys like 38 Spesh and Conway Machine for their bars, and producers like Sadhugold on the boards, then do not miss this shit here.

Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music

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Tobe Nwigwe – CINCORIGINALS

Cover Artist: Justin Stewart

I’ve been aware of Tobe for a little while now, seeing the occasional single from him that left me wondering where his “real” material was; it seemed like each song I was hearing was in this old-school Kendrick kind of feelingless delivery that felt like one-off concept tracks. After giving this album a try, my first full project from Nwigwe, I found that this style was something that he was embracing and using more than I initially realized, taking his Houston roots and transposing them over an incredible spread of HARD industrial hip-hop beats, all while spitting in this borderline emotionless drawl. Understanding that Tobe is not going for being “traditional” in any sense, with the goal of being uniquely grey while also bringing in as many established artists into his realm as possible, has increased my respect for him in huge ways, as CINCORIGINALS says a lot more about the kind if impact he wants to have in the game than anything I’ve heard from him so far. He’s taking an abrasive, borderline experimental approach to hip-hop and running the typical Houston-isms through that machine, all while bringing along various well-known emcees to create content that is slightly out of their comfort zone. CyHi’s got some stuff on that Cruel Winter LP that can pass for some stuff here (in fact, a lot of the weirdness here can be traced back to that Cruel Winter/Yeezus era Kanye), but Royce, Bun B, Lil Keke, and Kyleon all feel like they’re in another realm from their usual fare. However the feature that had me looking shit up to see if I was listening to the right song was Black Thought, coming with a flow that is totally uncharacteristic for the emcee, both in it’s similar understatement in delivery and the cadence he uses. I was surprised by how forward-thinking yet familiar that this H-Town banger-house ended up being; anyone who fucks with old Texas SLAB, as well as anyone who likes a more hardcore and internet-age hip-hop, will find something to love here.

Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music

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Sheff G – Proud Of Me Now

Cover Artist: [Unknown]

Feeling more like a mixtape with it’s shorter tracks and single feature, Sheff G’s debut album (his third this year after a separate EP and mixtape leading up to Proud Of Me Now’s release) is a markedly different, although predictable given how the scene is going, project for one of the most prominent figures in the Drill scene coming out of Brooklyn. If you have been watching these guys, you’ll see a shift towards more of the traditional trap elements, from the flows on down to the melodies, but Sheff G at least has the outline of a Drill project, a skeleton that has you distinctly feeling like you are listening to something new, but the familiarity of the subject matter and melodies keeps you grounded in reality. The thing is, unlike the early work of artists like Pop Smoke and Fivio Foreign, Sheff G strips back his instrumentals more than the usual Drill beats do, being hollow and sparse beats that have drum patterns that are reminiscent of those artists, but the room to play on the instrumentals has Sheff going all over the place with the freedom. He can hit you with super melodic choruses in his deep and carefree voice, get down and dirty with aggressive and technical flows, only a couple times coming through with something that truly feels like the subgenre he rose to prominence in. It’s not inherently a bad thing to diversify, and I think Sheff G really expands his sound on this project with nothing sounding awful (in fact I really seem to like his understated singing voice), but I would have liked to have seen more aggression and fire. We get one feature on here from common collaborator Sleepy Hallow, spitting back and forth over a beat that is by far the strangest on the album, a sort of drill-flavored flip on a Tiny Tim sample of all things; the humor and wit of the emcees, and the bewildering beat make this one of my favorite Sheff tracks. I think anyone who found merit in what Pop Smoke managed to achieve and progress into on Shoot For The Stars, Aim For The Moon will be able to appreciate what Sheff G is trying to do here, so listen to it based off of the strength of that.

Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music

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Conway the Machine – From King To A GOD (Deluxe)

Cover Artist: Hazem Talaat

Out of everyone going down this trend of deluxe albums, Conway is one of those rappers that I’ll gladly take any new material from, so adding on to his standout From King To A God album is a-okay in my book. I see why the tracks didn’t really fit into the framework of the original album (although Crack in the Nineties definitely should have been included to give Jae and 7xve the attention they deserve), being songs that are relatively non-descript “Griselda music”, sounding like they could have easily been on projects like The Blakk Tape or Reject 2. A track like Serena vs. Venus is a bit of an exception to the rule, being one of the clearest melodic pop-rap grabs I think the Machine has ever put out; it’s not a track that I’m going to sit here and say is trash, because, even ten feet out of his comfort zone Conway is a thrill to listen to, but I’m not gonna say this shit deserves to be on the radio or anything. The real rush I get listening to this deluxe edition is getting to experience Conway’s newest signees on his own Drumwork imprint, Jae Skeese and 7xvethegenius. Jae is molded from the exact cloth that Conway and Benny are: a spitter in his bones, wordplay that can go toe to toe with the best of Griselda’s, while 7xve is a slightly off-kilter but compelling storyteller type of emcee, closer to the Flygod himself than the lyrical heavy-hitters of the group. Low-key, I think Conway should have just made these tracks its own little EP so that his new artists could really get that special attention (he has so many projects at this point, what’s one more going to hurt?), but I understand that for exposure and numerical reasons making the deluxe was the way to go; the original album was just so… complete? to my ears, adding on more just seems unnecessary. Listen to this if you want more Griselda, simple as that.

Spotify/Apple Music

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The Musalini & Planet Asia – Pharoah Chain

Cover Artist: Huey P.

Maybe I’m going crazy, but I feel like we’ve been waiting for this album for a long time. There’s just something about the way that Mus and Planet Asia construct their bars that give this big playa energy, coming at it from different angles but still reaching the same conclusion: knowledge and fly-ass-shit. The different angles mostly come down to the differences in generations, with The Musalini being one of the biggest faces in this new wave of wavy and slow-burning hip-hop, a nice smooth counterpart to the darkness and fear of groups like Griselda and the rest of the Trust Gang. This is a market that Planet Asia has been playing around in for well over a decade, so his experience and wisdom comes across in his rhymes and flows, but this cutting-edge feel to the project gives his voice new life and reinvigorated youth. The mixture of these two together on Pharoah Chain gives the project a nice duality, a cinematic give-and-take that sees, at least in my opinion, Mus lead the charge with Chains in a close partner capacity. They’re rapping about the usual fare of nice cars/clothes/women, the occasional brick-bar in there, but mostly we’re talking about lyrics drawing inspiration from old films like Superfly and Black Dynamite. What really seals the deal on this project to me is the production, being some of the best that any Trust Gang affiliate has come out with this year: names like Vanderslice, SkinnyWhiteBeats, and Clypto (that Rolling Up beat is a beautiful flip) come with some of the smoothest and suave samples I’ve heard this year, some real Teddy Pendergrass shit. If you fuck with a slower, steadier rap style, backed with buttery soul and funk samples, this album is your place this week.

Spotify/Apple Music

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Lil Wayne – No Ceilings 3: B Side

Cover Artist: Karla Moy

I hope the trend of Wayne dropping two mixtapes back-to-back in any given release cycle is going to become a usual thing, because, while I can APPRECIATE Tha Carter series going all the way back to the first, I firmly believe that Weezy’s best material can be found on his free projects. I downloaded this shit (just like the A-sides from the other week) from DatPiff.com, a crazy feeling that Wayne’s mixtape discography (and pretty much *exclusively* his mixtape discography) is keeping that website relevant in today’s streaming marketplace, and a strong sense of nostalgia when artists would take each other’s beats and put their own salt on them. It wasn’t stealing or biting anyone: it was hearing a beat that you fucked with and wanting to show that “yeah, I can body that shit too”. There is no series that is as good at this than Wayne’s Dedication series, but riiiight next to that is his No Ceilings tapes, THE place to go to if you want phenomenal bars, beats that you will recognize if you follow the game, and features from Weezy’s closest collaborators. Now, on the first release of No Ceilings 3, I thought MAYBE he had gone a little too hard on that last point: there were some tracks where Wayne was absent, wasting beats like Sicko Mode for seemingly no reason. But this time around we get Wayne in all of his glory across all tracks, and my god the man hasn’t lost a touch. He’s more slurred and gross, maybe not as precise as he once was, but his mind has clearly never stopped thinking of outlandish and out-of-pocket shit to say on a tracks. Both in his aggressively villainous and over-autouned melodic states, Wayne is pretty much untouchable, every line a quote, every bar a punchline, and it doesn’t let up for the entire project let me tell you that. Lots of sex, lean, weed, and gang violence for those of you uninitiated to Weezy’s style, so don’t go into this expecting some kiddo shit: this man is a genuine psycho. But half of this battle is also won by the beat selection, one that I almost have to say is better than the A-sides. We get some no-brainers like Lil Baby’s Sum 2 Prove and Jack Harlow’s Tyler Herro, but there are some real surprises on here with Dreamville’s Down Bad, Gunna’s DOLLAZ ON MY HEAD, and, one of my favorite songs and beats of all time, Bryson Tiller’s Rambo. Together, both sides of the No Ceilings tape will keep us Lil Wayne fans fed for a long-ass time; if you’re looking for legends executing at the highest levels of quality over beats that have already earned your love, don’t pass this up. YouTube only for those who don’t want to stoop down to downloading…FILES… fucking cavemen.

YouTube/DatPiff

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J.I the Prince of N.Y – Hood Life Krisis, Vol. 3

Cover Artist: [Unknown]

There really isn’t much material to sink my teeth into on this project, being only 20 minutes of new material here (Excuse My Pain is a single I’ve already been getting into heavy), but I think there’s a lot to love about J.I’s style and what he brings to the game out of New York’s Pop-Rap scene. There are comparisons to be made to Lil Tjay and A Boogie (who is a lone feature on here, showing at least that he has the cosign of the large community), but I think that J.I has two things going for him: one is that whenever he shows emotion it feels genuine and sorrowful. Usually a lot of these kids sing and rap about this shit and it feels like melodrama, like shit they haven’t really gone through, but there’s something about J.I’s voice that has me thinking otherwise, a frail and defeated appeal to it that stands out amongst his peers. The other thing is his multiculturalism, with the track Suficiente being a moody reggaeton cut that works surprisingly well as a blend of his established style and his heritage, and has me wishing he rapped and sung more in Spanish. The beats here are pretty hands off, skeletal trap music that banks more on the vibes the artists bring rather than any sort of bump or knock. Like I said, the length is a bit brief, but there’s a lot of heart here, and I eagerly await a full-length project that I hope explores his deeper nuances and brings on some more features.

Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music

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Too $hort & E-40 – Ain’t Gone Do It / Terms and Conditions

Cover Artist: [Unknown]

So I didn’t get the chance to watch the Versuz battle that happened recently between 40 and $hort, but if I were to take a guess (based on the various memes that have come out) it was one of those “we’re all winners” kind of situations, bringing together two people that really have nothing between them except friendly competitive spirit and a love of The Bay. It’s only the next natural step up from a DJ-inspired hit contest to go head-to-head with actual full-length albums, which is exactly what this double feature from these two legends ends up being. What we have here is pretty much exactly the same format that OutKast used for their Speakerboxx / Love Below album: the straight-man, Too $hort, goes first with an entire disc devoted to his music, while, the wild-card, E-40, follows up with an album of his own. There is crossover, with both artists featuring on each other’s discs multiple times, but most of the time the two are going at it on their own, bringing on instead a SHITTON of external features. There really isn’t a significant difference between the offerings here: maybe Too $hort utilizes more of a pop-rap crowd to bulk up his album, maybe 40 has some more hilarious bars, but all of that was to be expected. $hort is more of a pimp type rapper, and anyone who can get down with artists like Eazy-E, Warren G, and Kurupt can easily fuck with this dude too (if you don’t already; the guy has been around for as long as those I mentioned at least). E-40 is more of an oddball, hurriedly rushing through his bars with reckless abandon, having fine-tuned his style over decades to be something you truly have never heard before, a hip-hop unicorn. Going into this project, expect a lot of flexing, west-coast slappers, lots of hoe-talk, and an enormous spread of features (G-Eazy, Blxst, Freddie Gibbs, Guapdad 4000, Drakeo the Ruler, etc.).

Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music

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-------SOUP’S HOT DEALS-------

Iceberg Theory & August Fanon – Dispatches From The Kali Yuga

Investment: $15.00

Cover Artist: Uncle Tim

Iceberg and Fanon have an established history together at this point, having released at least 5 albums that I’ve gotten the chance the listen to throughout the year. For whatever reason, those projects never grabbed my attention as much as I would have expected (maybe I wasn’t feeling very spiritual on those days), but there is something deep and compelling about this project that hit me off the jump, and it’s turned into something that I can’t stop listening to. Here’s how I would describe Iceberg Theory as a rapper (a brilliant name by the way): imagine Killah Priest being put into weird situations/moods and being forced to rap his way out of them. His lyrical base is an amalgam of religious ideology, abstract philosophy, retelling of ancient lost histories, and esoteric warnings of the problems the world may soon face. Ice’s voice has this inherent gruff to it, that at points sounds like hardship and wisdom, but can also be utilized in a Freddie Foxx type wildness on tracks that have more of a funk to them, similar to the stylings of someone like Pro Zay here in the modern era. But what makes all of this arcane magic comes together is the production from August Fanon, a beatsmith from Dallas who has been building up a portfolio of work that matches the quality of so many of the most prominent in the underground right now, criminally underrated amongst the community at large, who comes through with what I consider to be his most high-brow and varied material I’ve heard from him to date. He has tracks on here that are mysterious and hazy like a detective serial, enlightened and spiritual like some old Sunz of Man shit, sunny and frivolous, and there’s even a banging funk beat that Iceberg is able to expertly navigate. There’s really no rhyme or reason to the eclectic nature of his production style, with everything seemingly boiling down to: “is it dope? Yes? Let’s do it”. Every sample is in its place, the drums are just enough to keep the tempos rolling and the emcees grounded, and the philosophical speaker clips give one some genuine jewels to roll around in their heads. But this project is more than just a phenomenal rapper/producer pairing: the two bring along guest after guest to build up this album into something substantial and filling. There are names on here that I am familiar with: Paranom, Sleep Sinatra, Pro Zay (shoutout to my guy), but most of these excellent features are people I’m not entirely hip to, a great (and rare for me nowadays) feeling of finding a treasure trove of skilled emcees that deserve ears. Long story short, Dispatches From The Kali Yuga is far and away my favorite project from either Iceberg Theory or August Fanon, an amazing statement of skill from two guys who are entirely on each other’s wavelength. Check this out if you fuck with dudes like Tha God Fahim and Masta Killa.

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