03 Greedo & Kenny Beats - Netflix & Deal [2019]

Welcome to one of my many Write-Ups, where I dive into a contextual history of a project from an artist, while also breaking down the different parts worth mentioning. Come over to my Write-Ups page for a list of all of the work I’ve done so far.

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Prison used to be a death sentence for a career. Look at people like Ol’ Dirty Bastard and DMX; shit, Cappadonna missed the biggest opportunity of his life because he was locked up, never really recovering. But as the internet age progressed and the distribution of music changed, people with crazy work ethics emerged, churning out music at such a prolific pace that even with a prison sentence they could release projects without ever seeming like they were gone. Gucci Mane was not only the king of this practice, setting the trend for how to operate this way, but he has basically re-written the rulebook for a post-prison career, and shown conclusively that a prison sentence is not a death-knell to a rap career. However, this move is only achievable with a sizable vault of unreleased material that can be fed to people while the artist is away, and obviously the longer they’re away the more difficult it can be. Which leads me to the artist in question, 03 Greedo, who in 2018 was sentenced to 20 years in prison related to trafficking meth and firearms possession (although he’s eligible to be released after 5 years with good behavior). Greedo has been on the grind since around 2010, and the number of projects, while not reaching Guwop levels, is still impressive in its size, and if you think that a majority of recordings never see the light of day then the size of this man’s vault must be incredible. But is his hard-drive large (and quality) enough to survive a *minimum* of 5 years away? I believe that it is, and if Netflix & Deal is any indication then I don’t think he has anything to worry about in terms of his relevance.

The Wolf of Grape Street is still a street hit to this day in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, where 03 Greedo grew up and started his career.

03 Greedo is in a little bit of a special place, however, that separates him from the likes of Gucci Mane and 6ix9ine that will help him tremendously while he’s behind bars. Very soon before he left, he was collaborating with some of hip-hop’s most forward-thinking producers and rappers. These individuals had sounds that weren’t quite popping back whenever they recorded the material, but now that Greedo is gone and those producers have gone on to become entirely relevant, they are doing the man MASSIVE favors by releasing this material that is not just timely, but also relevant to the changes midstream trap has gone through. DJ Mustard and Travis Barker, who have both released their projects they did with Greedo, both succeeded in keeping his name alive while he was gone, with Mustard going through a sort of creative comeback and Barker gaining traction because of his affiliation with these emo rappers. But the name that has gained hella clout in the time between recording Netflix & Deal and today is Kenny Beats, who with 03 Greedo released their first collaborative album at the tail end of 2019, over a year after Greedo was locked up.

Kenny Beats has also experienced an extremely fruitful few years, with collaborative efforts with Rico Nasty, JPEGMAFIA, ALLBLACK, & Key! giving the man a wide array of accolades from a diverse spread of hip-hop subgenres. He still has a distinctiveness to his production style that sets him apart from others in a similar lane like Pi’erre Bourne & Tay Keith; the digitized boldness of his sample choices, his keen ear for melodies that are often played through very odd means, and some of the best drum-programming in the industry today. His vision for trap’s future back then is the present that we exist in now, where the chaotic distortion of South Floridian trappers is combined with the unique sampling and instrumental choices of groups like The Neptunes or BROCKHAMPTON’s Romil Hemnani. Kenny’s performance on Netflix & Deal doesn’t stray far from his now-established sound, with every track coming with slaps, whether that be the sub-bass rattling the paint off your car or the conspicuous samples assaulting you with their sharpness

The tracks on Netflix & Deal can be divided up into sunnier and more carefree tracks, and self-serious/cavernous trap. The album starts on a lighthearted note, with Traffic reminding me of Chris Brown track crossed with Playboi Carti’s Location crossed with the Wii-Shop Music; it never feels to busy (which is a common theme in a lot of Kenny Beats material), and each instrument feels in place with the others to create an easily digestible listen. Disco Shit is a bassier, but much cuter and fun track, with the keyboard work in particular evoking that sense of dance music with buzzing notes played in a genius melody. Blue People plays it up with glossy bells and whistles, ratcheting up the BPM and creating this crystalline structure of synths around beat; it really works with the otherworldly nature of the lyrics. Life is a track on the album that plays heavily into its sample, which sounds like a recreated guitar melody from a Dire Straits song creating this sense of nostalgia that few tracks on the record can. Honey I Shrunk the Kids is the happiest cut on the record, with the vibrant and tubular flutes bringing up the back of the mix in an extremely catchy melody. But Netflix & Deal contains a dark trap heart to it that goes along with its more accessible tracks, and cuts like Brad Pitt with the quickened snake charmer flutes, and Aye Twin with the singular piano notes (again, played in an elegant melody) are great examples of Kenny giving Greedo’s story a bit more mystery and grit.. Paid in Full, with my personal favorite beat on here, is a digitized wispy/windy cut with smoldering flute clips and crisp trap snares; the instrumental melody on this track is so disgustingly good that I could just listen to the beat and feel transported. That’s the thing about the majority of the production on this album: the backing instrumental melodies on these tracks are seriously genius, and the fact that this is all made by one guy in his home studio is incredible to say the least.

Kenny Beats (right, made of clay) and 03 Greedo (left, actual portrait) had the album cover and the Disco Shit music video done by amazing clay sculptor William Child. Go check out this guy’s shit.

For the uninitiated, Greedo can be a strange rapper, and an especially strange vocalist. He’s definitely on the Thugger spectrum, trending towards the more animalistic and yelpy side, but 03 Greedo’s voice is its own beast entirely. Besides the fact that a majority of his vocals are drenched in autotune, surrounded by a forest of adlibs and backing vocals, his voice is cartoony and brittle, particularly when he gets into his upper ranges. I’m not going to say the man can sing, but the modular and heavily tampered nature of his vocals can give the impression of a program or a machine vocalizing at you. In the context of a project like Still Summer in the Projects with DJ Mustard, you can make comparisons to a G-Funk Talk-box kind of feel; but with Kenny Beats it takes on a more robotic and… comedic form. But don’t let his goofy falsettos and digital vocals fool you: 03 Greedo is no dummy when it comes to penning earworms on his hooks. He rightly plays into the instrumental melodies on tracks like Disco Shit, Blue People, and Life, and all tracks show a great effort in making something that is inherently catchy and varied.

The lyrics across this record are one of the most unique characteristics about it where, believe it or not, it actually falls into a loose motif/concept. Netflix & Deal, obviously in reference to the streaming service with movies and TV shows, is taken quite literally in the tracklist, with almost every track sticking to a rough topic that draws from some of 03 Greedo and Kenny Beats’ favorite films and actors. The track Brad Pitt is, unsurprisingly, about the actor Brad Pitt, and his verses here crudely weave a dozen of his movies into one-off references that is both hilarious and impressive. Greedo’s love of Johnny Depp comes out in Disco Shit, which is a retelling of his film Blow with Greedo replaced as Depp’s character. Blue People compares the blue face of a crisp hundo with Avatar’s natives, Nightcrawler, and Stitch, and sticks with blue throughout the whole verse. Paid in Full, again coming in as my favorite of the bunch, is an extended reference to the movie of the same name (one of my favorites too), and listening to the suaveness of his “bitch I think I’m Money Mitch / I think I’m Rico but I ain’t gon’ shoot you for the bricks” is satisfying as fuck.

Still Summer in the Projects, while I thought it was a bit too drawn out, was otherwise a great collaboration between Greedo and Mustard. It showed an appreciation for the West Coast’s older musical tastes.

The features on here are a mixed bag, and while I’m usually all for guests on a project I feel like Greedo does well enough on his own to have cut a majority of them. Let’s get through the good: Freddie Gibbs on Disco Shit is amazing, with his speedy flows and mouthful of syllables stealing the show on the track, and he even takes the cue from Greedo by heavily modulating his voice and being liberal with the autotune. Maxo Kream is a great feature as well, although it seems like Beg Your Pardon was *his* track with a 03 Greedo feature to begin with; his hook is solid and his verse has this icy monotony to it that fits the beat perfectly. Unfortunately, from here there is a significant drop in quality. KEY! has never been able to get into my rotation, and while his appearance here on Aye Twin works well enough I’m always left wanting more after hearing him. Buddy could have been a better feature if he was given more than a small hook to go off of: a verse from this guy was crucial, bad sadly the ball was dropped. By far the most disappointing feature is Vince Staples. On Blue People, his flow is disappointing, and his lyrics are so, so far below what the man is capable of; it’s hard to imagine that this is the same person that came out with Shyne Coldchain and Summertime ’06.

Netflix & Deal will not only hold Greedo down while he’s behind bars, but I think it serves as his most well-rounded, thought out, and well structured project to date. While I felt like a lot of his earlier work reveled too much in his excessive autotune and ENTIRELY too long tracklists, the impeccable sequencing and focus that Netflix & Deal shows brings his artistry to the next level. Kenny Beats is a huge part of this, with his attention to detail and genre-pushing approach to producing being a huge part of the appeal of this record: if you aren’t a fan of Greedo’s goblin-like crooning, but you’re a fan of well-constructed trap beats, I’d still recommend this as a solid listen. I’d still like to hear what else is in Greedo’s vault, because if this is the kind of shit he was recording before he was picked up, then I’m ready to hear what else he was working on. Of course, it’s still Free Greedo all day till he comes home, and I think whenever he eventually gets out he’ll be in a great position to retake some of that ground he conquered in 2018-2019.

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