Weekly Fix #6 ('21)

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 next 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. The final section will be for projects that have had a Hot Deal-type release, but have recently come to streaming. Click here to see a list of previous Fixes.

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     Y’all ever had soup before? Well, unless you’re a weirdo that likes that gazpacho shit, you like your soup HOT. That’s why I have my HOT deals down there. Well, right now in much of America, it is NOT hot; in fact, it is fucking cold as shit for this midwestern soup bowl right now, where it’s gonna be zero degrees here before too long. For anyone in the retail space, especially a grocery store like myself, you know people go fucking batshit crazy before the snows hit, so that’s what I’m going through right now. I’m a tired motherfucker.

This week marks a couple of really big project releases, few in quantity but large in impact. Don’t forget to tap into the Singles post every week to supplement the albums that come out every week: there are usually anywhere from 10 to 15 new songs coming out on a weekly basis that I go and scour the internet for, so take the time and get familiar with these songs that usually herald upcoming albums.

Take a look down below to get into some new Conway (with Big Ghost on the assist), new General Steele (of Smif-n-Wesson, that record with Es-k on the assist), new General Back Pain (with Tone Beatz on the assist) and DaBoii (with no one on the assist). Again, don’t forget about those Singles, because we got some good ones this week from Tek (the *other* half of Smif-n-Wesson), Cardi B, and Ghetts, among many others.

Thank you all for your patience while I try to write what I can while being incredibly drained and creatively bankrupt. I try to give all of these posts the attention they deserve (and the artists the attention they deserve no less), but lately it’s felt like a battle getting through every week. It’s not at all that I don’t want to cover this music, it’s just that time and energy always seem to be in the way…The future will be brighter I’m sure, but bear with me for right now.

Here’s a link to the Week #6 (’21) Playlists

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Here’s a link to the Week #6 (‘21) Singles

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Here’s a link to the Week #6 (’21) Art Appreciation post

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

General Steel & Es-k – AmeriKKKA’s Nightmare III – City Under Siege

Cover Artist: Phillip Moi-Thuk-Shung

It has been a long time since I’ve heard an album so unflinchingly political. There have been efforts to reach down into this kind of hip-hop, but it’s message is usually presented in tandem with other elements of culture to move the needle on more than one front. AmeriKKA’s Nightmare III doesn’t engage with anything instrumentally that you haven’t heard before, and in fact it’s heart and soul lies in a very early period of hip-hop, before the activist rap of the 2010’s, before the conscious rap of the late 90’s, and even before the influx of the jazzy samples of the early 90’s; this shit is as close to the brutal honesty of raps earliest days as anything you can find. There is a very clear Public Enemy angle on this project, with easy to follow and compelling musings on the state of the world, the government, and the black man, with a very slight sprinkling of conspiratorial rhetoric to throw in a little bit of the unknown. Steele pulls absolutely no punches on this in in terms of how he’s delivering his messages; he does not play with his flows, he does not try and wow you with crazy wordplay or gimmicks. Steele’s appeal on this record is what he is saying, the conviction with which he says it, and the truth of the knowledge that he is dropping. AmeriKKKa’s Nightmare III is an incredibly powerful series of tracks that maintain themes within themselves from the relationship between minority and white communities, the racism that is felt to this day, the ways the government so often has betrayed the trust of the people, and the destruction of the prison system. The directness of Steele’s rapping is matched by the relatively basic nature of the beats; I’m not at all saying the beats are boring, but rather comparing them to the oldest beatmakers in the genre who valued a solid drum loop and maybe the occasional sample over anything flashy or distracting, production legends like The Bomb Squad and DJ Premier being clear inspirations behind this spread of beats. What’s more is you get a shit-ton of guests on here that play along with each tracks theme fantastically, with special credit given to both Da Flyy Hooligan and Ali for rapping about their struggles from a British/French perspective respectively. This is a heavy project from front to back, tackling some pretty controversial subjects, so anyone familiar with the work of guys like Immortal Technique and NWA will be right at home on this one.

Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music

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Papoose – January

Cover Artist: thakidshadow

Papoose has stated two things so far in 2021, the first one being that he is going to retire at the end of the year, a completely understandable position given that he’s been in the game for over 20 years. But the second revelation should be exciting for everyone: Papoose plans on dropping an album every month for the next year as a send off, and he’s off to a great start with this EP. As usual, I think Pap’s pen is still one of the best in the game, able to come up with wordplay that a lot of guys couldn’t come up with if they had a pen+pad and an hour alone. Pretty much every line is a solid bar, and, even though a lot of guys in the New York street scene have difficulties coming up with good hooks I think Papoose overcomes this by not only enlisting others to do the hooks for him (whether that’s a guest or the producer) but also by… just not having them because who needs them? I think there’s also a great balance between newer popular sounds, newer New York Sounds, and that really dark and old dirty shit (that Trick You Off The Street is some Pete Rock type shit for sure), having a great variety of sounds on this short project. Being 25 minutes of straight bars, there’s not much more to say than that: he’s got one rapping guest in Wiz Khalifa of all people, but Pap isn’t a big fan of inviting guests on his projects anyway so we should be grateful for what we got. If you want a project of that “oh shit?” kind of bars, I think Papoose has you covered here on January, and hopefully he comes through on that one album a month promise, cause a monthly infusion of bars is healthy for the soul for sure.

Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music

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DaBoii – Ywn 2

Cover Artist: [Unknown]

This dude is one of the best on the West Coast in terms of humor and rapping ability, but a lot of his projects feel like they could use a layer of work on the back end. What I mean by that is, the rapping is entirely on point, but the mixing and mastering can leave a lot to be desired, feeling more like an unfinished mixtape than anything. Ywn 2 does not have ANY of these problems, an in fact is by far the best project the man has ever put out from every angle. The beats are on point, mostly bangers with loud thumping bass. The hooks are crazy good, showing a lot of time was spent to make the album catch the ear. Most importantly, the rapping is fucking nuts all over every track, DaBoii being a total madman on the microphone with his manic and electric delivery that seems to barely follow the beat at points. His sloppiness isn’t laziness, but rather it seems like he’s imagining his own beat that he’s rapping over, still as quick and nimble as you would expect just on a different timeline from everyone else. The shit he says can be absolutely hilarious, shit that can be totally out of pocket, but he makes a point to spend some time on some actual serious topics like police brutality; the album is overwhelmingly rowdy and irreverent, but the occasional deep moment gives DaBoii a lot more depth than he usually shows. He does so well on his own, that it feels like he doesn’t need to overclock his album with a ton of features, inviting only his fellow SOBxRBE alum Slimmy B, Mike Sherm, and Mozzy onto a handful of tracks, all of whom kill their respective features and show hella chemistry with the main emcee. Check this shit out if you like that slippery Bay Area style, where weird flows and hilarious vocal inflections rule the day.

Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music

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Emilio Craig – In the Same Token

Cover Artist: Huey P.

Closely associated with The Musalini, I’ve been following Emilio as an artist since I was put on to his Robbery at Blockbuster project he released last August, and since then I’ve been waiting for his combination of laid-back bars and amazing sampled beats. Mus scratches a lot of the same itches that Emilio does (and drops much more often it seems), but I think Craig is more of a rappers’ rapper than Musalini is; what I mean by that is that Mus is much more about the style and image of his rhymes and delivery, while Emilio can incorporate both intensely clever bars with his very hands-off rapping style and still make it entirely attention-grabbing. His rapping is very quiet and loose, talking mostly about the finest things in life, a luxury lifestyle that is backed beautifully by the scant beats that utilize few drums. I don’t know who produced this project, but it’s very similar sonically to his previous effort (which was produced by iamT2), which is a great aesthetic that he does a great job with, so I won’t complain. Those beats are really something special, making a unique series of moments instead of a cohesive spread, almost like a movie in the way the sounds weave together and allow space for the vocalist to do his thing. While this project is presented with no features, there are actually a handful of people who show up to support Emilio Craig, with killer verses from Mus himself, O Finess, and Planet Asia. Listen to this shit if you like old-school hip-hop that you won’t feel antagonized by, like a Roc Marciano type experience.

Spotify/Apple Music

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Slim 400 – BompTTon

Cover Artist: Cheng Sok & Pico Shaw

Whenever I was going through this past week and finding all the new releases, I saw the name, Slim 400, and it sparked a little lightbulb in my brain. I knew that I had heard of this guy, but I just couldn’t remember from where…. A little iTunes search later and I remembered his great appearances on YG’s early records, and I was ready to see how the years had treated him. BompTTon seems like a very important album to Slim, with hooks that sound like a lot of attention was paid to them, beats that sound like a lot of money was paid for them, and a FUCK TON of features from a ton of guys that I have never heard of (a lot like YG’s strategy of old, getting the homies on the track with him). Pretty much every track on this album has a feature on it, so I can imagine people who have never heard of Slim 400 before might have difficulty knowing which one of these voices is actually his, and here’s the only help I can give: he sounds very much like RJmrLA, who I think a lot of people who follow me should know given that I think RJ’s On God album is one of my favorites. Slim has a good flow, a very shrill and slightly obnoxious voice, and his personality has a great sense of humor and stands out as the most fully formed out of all of his brothers he brings on the album. The beats, for their part, have some slappers amongst their midst as well. If you want West Coast bangers with huge gang-cypher tracks and tons of hilarious bars, then give this a shot and save the tracks you like.

Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music

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-------SOUP’S HOT DEALS-------

Conway the Machine & Big Ghost LTD. – If It Bleeds It Can Be Killed

Investment: $12.00

Cover Artist: Jelle Smid

The sequel to Conway and Big Ghost’s No One Mourns The Wicked from about this time last year, If It Bleeds It Can Be Killed (I’m loving these huge mouthful titles that Conway keeps coming out with by the way, it’s better than just “BLOOD” or some shit I don’t know) is better in almost every way from the original. That first album between the two (not counting Griselda Ghost of course) is a dark and dangerous album, totally consumed with the grinding, gunpowder-soaked samples and blunt wordplay, but If It Bleeds It Can Be Killed feels much more multidimensional and varied. Both in the instrumentals and the rapping, there is a sense of growth between projects, something so incredible to witness given that both of these artists are entirely established by this point. Ghost is coming through with beats that go beyond brooding darkness, reaching into the pits of the Abyss for tracks like Kill All Rats and Red Beams, but also coming much short of that darkness into more levitous territory, like the true keyboard bliss on the second half of Losses To Blessings or the 80’s Rock synths on Toast. Even Conway on here diversifies a bit, much like he did on his From King To A God album he dropped last year; yes, you’re going to get his normal Griselda fare rapping in expert tone and with clever mind, but you get more introspection on here in comparison to No One Mourns The Wicked, tracks like Forever Ago talking about his relationships, and Losses To Blessings speaking on the death of Chine Gun and his other close homies. Anyone who want well-made, fleshed out, and engaging underground hip-hop needs to have this album in their libraries. This shit is only available on Bandcamp for the moment, but it is worth every dollar you’ll spend on it (and you can stream it for free from Bandcamp itself, so go and do that at the very least to hear this shit).

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General Back Pain & Tone Beatz – Cumulus

Investment: $7.00

Cover Artist: DTH

Shoutout to my guy Tone Beatz for keeping me up to date with all of his work; I’m glad that you fuck with the work I got going on over here, and you best know that that respect is mutual. Cumulus is another solid project in Tone’s production portfolio since I’ve been following him, which started with my love of the project he did with All Hail Y.T. last year called The Spoils of Babylon, sitting well amongst projects like that Y.T. project and These Violent Delights with Killy Shoot. This album is much more like These Violent Delights than anything else, tapping further into this scene that I’m still in the process of familiarizing myself with guys like Killy, Deuce Hennessey, Chuck Chan, and Lupus Dei (all of whom feature on this project as well) all deal in this slower, heavy-sample-based hip-hop. Whenever I say slower, I mean that not only is Tone slowing down those BPMs to let his beats breathe, but these emcees are very methodical and lumbering in their deliveries, making sure that their impressions are felt with their large voices and enunciated flows. General Back Pain is the epitome of this style, having one of the deepest voices I’ve ever heard in the genre; I mean this shit is on a Trae the Truth level of baritone, you can literally feel the bass in his voice whenever he raps, giving everything he says this weight and thickness to it, which makes any sort of violent tendencies he has in his rhymes hit that much harder. If you fuck with guys like Griselda and G4 JAG, then this sort of album will be exactly what you’re looking for.

Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music

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-----NEW TO STREAMING-----

Remy Banks – the phantom of paradise.

Cover Artist: Naomi Velez, Jacob Rochester, & Remy Banks

Read About It Here: Weekly Fix #5 (‘21)

Spotify/YouTube/Apple Music

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