Image via DB.Boutabag/Instagram
Harley Geffner has acquired Yamashita’s gold (Waiting for Britney Spears by Jeff Weiss, out now and available here).
On what was supposed to be the greatest night of her life, Chicago’s Mello Buckzz suffered an unthinkable tragedy. After years of grinding and on the verge of national breakout, the rapper from East Chicago hosted an album release party at a club downtown. This was to be the album that took her over the top – her big coming out moment. But as folks exited the event, a horrific drive-by shooting occurred, leaving four dead and 14 injured. The four dead were Mello’s boyfriend, her brother, and her two best friends. The shooters remain at large. On top of that, her father got arrested days later for an unrelated incident.
The grief is almost impossible to process. No narrative arc can hold something like this; there is no way to turn it into a cautionary tale or a teachable moment. The attackers waited outside until the party was over, then opened fire onto a crowd on the sidewalk. A night meant to celebrate life became a site of mass death.
The album was, of course, overshadowed by everything that happened during the release party. But the two are completely intertwined. Mello’s music has always sounded like survival. It’s fast, loose, and moves like there’s someone chasing it. The ratchet bars spill out like someone who’s living life as if they could lose it, and her drill-style bark sounds at home over the jittery juke production on songs like “Move Pt. 2” with Monaleo. It’s fun and celebratory, but the undertones rattle your ribcage and hollow out a pit in your stomach.
There may not be a bigger message in all this, but maybe there doesn’t need to be. Maybe it’s enough that she’s still standing, still rapping, and still making noise in a world that has tried to silence her at every turn.
“This a slight vent, I ain’t into crying ‘bout my life, but this shit pays me so I’d rather cry on this mic.”
Those are the wise words of someone who is, both literally and metaphysically, ’bout a bag. Sacramento’s DB.Boutabag slows things down over this melancholy sax loop, venting through the greyscale video, staring at himself in mirrors juxtaposed with huge crowds he’s performing to. It’s funny how dramatic it looks, but he is spitting some real, and introspective bars here.
Most of his complaints about his girl don’t make any sense, (“your dad left you so you can’t tell me I ain’t doin’ it right”) but you do feel for him when he expresses the pain of picking his son up at school just to drop him off at her house – or when he talks about staring at selfies with his son. Ultimately, it seems like she’s helped him grow, because he admits that he had to kill his ego and let go of his pride to make it all work.
I think it’s just the Fabolous / Neyo sample and interpolation from Kodak but this melody is straight addictive. Kodak’s drug-addled lilt adds a flair of unpredictability to both the sound itself and the asides that sprout from the hook. He takes “I look good all by myself, but baby you could make me better,” and flips it into “I leave the ruger on the shelf, cause I be cool with my beretta,” before diving into a whole thing about which guns shoot better.
Kodak’s tendency to let his mind wander and just jump in wherever, then double down, feels almost like Trump at the podium getting distracted and launching into a bit. He gets on this train of thought, and dives all the way in, with a repetition that sounds so natural in the way he’s presenting it. He raps and adlibs around it in ways that make it impossible to punctualize:
“So when the time presents itself, to go step, I look around and see no steppers/I see no steppers, like where my steppers, these so called steppers”
Just like Trump, Kodak would not be allowed within 500 meters of anyone I love, but they are, reluctantly and admittedly, outlaws. The difference is, Kodak is actually talented at something. Feel free to skip the other guys’ verses and jump straight in before the 2-minute mark.
Greedo has multiple outlandish looks in this video, and it’s making me believe there is a void in the media space for someone to categorize all the worst looks rappers have worn in Paris throughout history. Sending out the bat signal to all who would like to participate in such an exercise.
At 40 seconds in, we get a glimpse of Greedo in the back of a sprinter wearing what looks like an Imam’s prayer robe, with what appears to be a black fur hat that might appear on an Orthodox jew in Russia. A red beret makes an appearance, and so does an orange trench coat that, on its own wouldn’t look that bad, but he starts swaying and facetiously walking like a businessman, flying the drapes and flaps all over the place at around 2:30 in the funniest possible way.
I like the idea of Greedo doing Jersey Club music better in practice than execution, but everything Greedo makes sounds good, and this is no exception. It’s more texture than substance, and some of his best work comes out of that formula.
San Diego’s Sietegang Yabbie is having one of those runs this past year. Every single, every feature, better than the last, and varied in both musical styles and flows. If it keeps going like this, he’ll be entering rarified air. For my money, he’s been the best rapper West of the Mississippi this calendar year (with all apologies to Banditdamack and I guess Kendrick).
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