Image via Tadoe/Instagram
Steven Louis is seeing something else in these Georgia O’Keefe portraits.
Live from the narrowest and mustiest hallway in a house of browning mirrors, Gabe ‘Nandez gets to work unpacking the unsightly. “Ball & Chain” is a tough listen despite its midsummer acid jazz flutters and black silk flow. Preservation’s production makes a hot air convection for ‘Nandez to bard out on, and their result is a miniaturist saga of rotting sublimation. Our narrator pitches his warning-turned-eulogy with dueling tones. He sounds conspicuously removed from bent needles and burnt plastic, yet winces in familiarity as the subjects keel over. His vocals are smooth but also sinewy, a small strip of undusted sunlight on a Bushwick traphouse windowsill. “Nobody hustle like addicts tryna reach the attic.” Imagine the fiends’ faces when they finally get up there, unwrap the score and find … a thoughtful, hand-written 32-bar verse. The forthcoming Gabe ‘Nandez-Preservation album, Sortilège, drops August 15 on Backwoodz Studioz.
Eminem’s early-aughts commercial dominance had a few unintentional hilarious consequences, none less subtle than Rufus Johnson’s solo career. Did you know that Hannicap Circus (Bizarre’s debut album from 2005) landed features from Big Boi, Erick Sermon, Raphael Saadiq and stic.man of Dead Prez? The following two decades brought D12’s stomach-rubbing stuntman back down to the subterranean. As it turns out, Bizarre did not start a group with The Real Roxanne. He did, however, start the five-part He Got a Gun series with fellow Detroiter Foul Mouth on the boards. I can’t say I’ve listened to any of the previous drops, but whatever we’re calling this (“Boss Up” on YouTube, “Mid July” on other streamers) is making me wholly reconsider Bizarre’s rap legacy. He was painting in off-kilter crassness back when the Ghetto Boyz were slipping whoopie cushions under elementary school desks. And even if he’s churned out a lifetime of unlistenable music, this right here is galactically smooth. Payroll Giovanni would surely throw racks to burn rubber on this beat. YN Jay is definitely punching the air over the chemo sex bar (…yup). Biz sends shoutouts to Flint’s Rio Da Yung Og, Pontiac’s Ill Will and Detroit’s Tommy “Hitman” Hearns. Here’s to those custom Shady Records shower caps sewn up for Kash Doll and Martha Stewart.
Ain’t no party like a Young Nudy party ‘cuz a Young Nudy party has these floating body rituals and mystical elder possessions (in a chill kind of way, we promise). The pole dancers are what sell the flier, fine, but please do be sure to load up on the Slimeball chicken (chef’s recommendation). “Iced Tea” is something between a Blue Velvet hood tour and a voodoo barbecue potluck. The crowd is diverse, the beat has an eerie but punchy half-step groove, and the samovar is spiked beyond all reasonable doubt. Nudy’s dental work outflanks your wedding planner’s dream budget; 21 Savage favors a particularly bold ole’ switch-a-roo and sells sheet rock to Zone 6 Atlanta brick-buyers. The star of the function is Project Pat, though, drawing partygoers away from the backyard action and into the North Memphis flow of the century. Pat’s syncopated cadence still defines a wide swath of southern rap comfort food, and his hook crystallizes like lemon juice and brown sugar slushing through the air conditioning.
A lot jumps out from Bandit2Krazyy’s debut, even if his actual performance is underwhelming thus far. Palmdale’s ascendant and the rest of his crew look way too young to be this outside, for one thing. As developing legend has it, an unhoused rapper scrapped enough money together to cold-call DJ Flippp for an EP package. The Colombian-Ecuadorian producer then put him onto Foo Community, and behold, his star now rises through Southern California in real time. Flippp’s beat is a straightforward end-of-the-piano masher with fight-starting 808s, and while Bandit isn’t doing much with a brusque one-note rhyme scheme, he has a stylish and bullying way of isolating certain syllables (case, space, taste, heart race). Above all, he sounds eager and fearless, which is how this packaging will sell. The undrafted rookie’s got our attention.
In which GBE’s lieutenant general is minted as an eight-time Trapper of the Year. Here are the numbers from “Run the Game” to support his candidacy:
An $80K play that was made while geekin’, which feels like the Michael Jordan Flu Game, or at least an Allen Iverson still-drunk 30-piece
His Trackhawk Jeep truck came with a chain, a baddie, a mansion and two choppers. Incredible GMing there. Tadoe could probably get get Luka Dončić on Glo Gang for a first-round pick and a box of old Leaders hoodies
A $300K summer, sans-brick too! Sorry to switch sports, but that’s basically Ken Griffey Jr. keeping up without juicing
A $500K road run THAT HE WASN’T EVEN ON THE ROAD FOR. Yeah, we can call it
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