I was hella young, watching Triple H and Ric Flair, bust my head open, playfighting with a steel chair, trying to be a wrestler almost put me in a wheelchair, thankful for that Medicare welfare healthcare.
"When I was growin' up, teardrops and face tats was for like real killas. Like, if a nigga had a face tat, I couldn’t even look him in the eye or something ‘cause he was a real crazy-ass nigga. Nowadays, nigga got a face tat, oh, he’s a hypebeast, Soundcloud-ass, internet-ass rapper. Probably got some dirty-ass Vans and probably got Lil Somethin’ in his name or somethin', you know what I’m sayin'?
I guess it’s like a fad, like some cool shit. I feel like, even how they call it trap rap, they talkin' about trap, they sound like crackheads and drug dealers. I mean crackheads and junkies. It’s like all the little suburb skate kids tryin' to take all the gangsta shit and make it weak. Water that shit down. That’s exactly what it mean.
A lot of motherfuckers, they just be talkin' like, nigga talk about some, “I get the dope on the boat. I got the dope in my coat.” Nigga, how the fuck you … where? Niggas talkin' bout they got a zip of Xans. How the fuck you get a zip of Xanax? That shit don’t even make sense. Niggas talkin' ‘bout, “Yo, somethin’ somethin' re-rock.” What is re-rock? Tell me what re-rock is. These skateboard-ass, hipster-ass niggas takin' the gangsta shit and tryin' to sound cool and they sound stupid as hell.
We used to watch WWF, but we was on some ECW shit. Especially at my Aunt Trish house. She used to always be at work. She had this big-ass bed. So me and my brother Madu and my cousin Lindo and my little baby brother Josh used to always wrestle. Since Josh was the little nigga, he was the cruiser weight. Him and Lindo. We used to do all the moves on them niggas and shit.
But my little brother Madu was strong. He tried to put me in the torture rack, but I was way bigger than him. He dropped me on my neck. I guess it’s called dislocated but in the hood they call it poppin' outta place and so they just pop it back for you. So yeah, that’s what happened. Fucked my shit up.
But we used to always do that shit. Break windows, break tables, break chairs. We used to wrestle like a motherfucker. I thought I was gonna go to the league, be a wrestler, a rapper, all that shit."
Best rapping of 2018 on this track. The way he links his childhood to Harvey and RICO is sublime. Storytelling rap at its finest; uber-specific impressionism. _________________ 2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
Yeah I definitely see this as the most Skinny/Lethal Nezzle tra/k of this tournament, the way it builds atmosphere and tension is something else, also the rhymes & delivery are sublime. Need to get on that album. Kromium Plated is fun but just not on the same level in it's admittely polar-opposite artistik expression.
Although I admit it's divine happenstan/e that this tra/k is up against a group from birmingham
'Roaches' is probably my favourite track of 2018, and the best thing Maxo Kream has done. It has a melancholy vibe that harks back to the Nas of 'Blunt Ashes' and 'Doo Rags', helped by that gorgeous, gauzy synth motif (think it's a Boards of Canada sample, maybe, but have been thus far unable to confirm this) and relatively sparse percussion, which allows Maxo's metronomic flow and warts'n'all storytelling to take deserved centre stage. What I love about Maxo Kream is his ability to straddle two generations at once, being an old school lyricist whose ability to make the mundane sound poetic has forebears in NYC classicists like Biggie, Kool G. Rap, and the aforementioned Nas, whilst at the same time making of the moment trap songs which don't shy away from proudly boasting of drug dealing and robbing, all the while sounding completely natural (as opposed to others who claim to meld old school craftsmanship with contemporary aesthetics, but always come across as tryhard, like J.I.D. for example). There's an authenticity to Maxo which give his hyperspecific coming of age tales a real pathos, but there's also something of the unapologetic Southern underdog in him that puts him on a nonlinear path containing the likes of Pimp C, Z-Ro, Juicy J, and Big Boi, to name a few. Here, he tells of his life growing up in Houston, from finding the titular roaches that had made their way into ashtrays and cereal bowls, to ruining computers with dodgy Limewire downloads, to shooting a gun for the first time and having to hide from the police. Whilst this song would've been fantastic if that was its entire content, the way he links that childhood to present day by presenting his mother's desperate phone calls in the wake of Harvey is genius ("on the roof for three days before rescue by FEMA, twelve years later, same day as Katrina"), and somehow totally unforced, and his hope in the face of his and his brother's RICO case is admirable, if somewhat resigned ("I hope my lawyer got the cheat code"). What makes 'Roaches' so great, though, is its very genuine depiction of family, and how they get each other into scrapes but ultimately rely on each other for help and support in the darkest of moments. 'Roaches' is the moment Maxo Kream ascended from being a likeable but workmanlike Southern stylist to being one of the most unflinching and believable writers working in hip-hop - or any genre, for that matter - today. As far as I'm concerned, it deserves to be recognised as the minor masterpiece it is. Over a year since I first heard it, I still listen to it nearly every day. _________________ 2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
......whilst at the same time making of the moment trap songs which don't shy away from proudly boasting of drug dealing and robbing, ....
Praiseworthy indeed!!!!
Slinging poison, robbery, violent crime, glorification of thug life.... thank you for confirming the negative stereotypes of the genre... and your support for it. You have ZERO grounds to lay negative criticism against the content of any lyric.
Slinging poison, robbery, violent crime, glorification of thug life.... thank you for confirming the negative stereotypes of the genre... and your support for it. You have ZERO grounds to lay negative criticism against the content of any lyric.
Cheer up, grandad. _________________ 2021 in full effect. Come drop me some recs. Y'all know what I like.
Slinging poison, robbery, violent crime, glorification of thug life.... thank you for confirming the negative stereotypes of the genre... and your support for it. You have ZERO grounds to lay negative criticism against the content of any lyric.
Slinging poison, robbery, violent crime, glorification of thug life.... thank you for confirming the negative stereotypes of the genre... and your support for it. You have ZERO grounds to lay negative criticism against the content of any lyric.
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