Image via El Cousteau/Instagram
Harley Geffner wants to know what they even do in the Met Gala.
Aside from all the quippy takes, everything about this song is hard. If it was just an El Cousteau song, it would be one of his best. Rocking the leopard fur hat, he raps with a drag on his voice about everything from giving a girl her purpose to unsolved murders and ducking task forces. All the goons are outside, everyoneās rapping along, beerās spilling out the brown bags, and itās just an all-around turnt vibe. Wikiās there too.
Thereās a pause for dramatic effect, then Earlās voice cuts through as he rips off a contender for verse of the year. He feeds off the energy around him and concentrates it into straight line raps. He hits some fun entendres ā the 8-ballās in the corner pocket because he put some spin on the white. In one bar, he raps āIām not okay, but Iām gonā be alright,ā which is as succinct a distillation of the modern malaise as any I can remember. Heās always rapped like heās hungry, but now it feels like Earl is really just having fun with it and letting it come to him. Itās like when a technically good hooper starts playing a little more free, and itās hard to pinpoint exactly what theyāre doing, but it all just clicks together more smoothly.
Almost nobody raps about death better than Savannah, GA native Quando Rondo. Losing people is one of the hardest experiences to conceptualize, but even harder to verbalize. Itās not really meant to be understood. Our brains seek logic behind every occurrence so that we can feel in-control of our universe ā random death is something that can shatter our world.
Itās not the loss itself that Quando describes or understands so well, but itās that lack of understanding. Heās so fluent in singing and rapping about the desperation of searching for meaning and coming up empty. Itās how he sings about clinging on to a loved oneās shirt and smelling their cologne; itās in the desperate pleas for heaven to have a phone; ultimately, itās really about the tone in his voice that conveys this feeling. Itās the voice of longing, scratched and scraped, but still trying to eek out the notes. The scars and trauma he raps about are sonically etched, as he sings āI swear the shit got to a point where I donāt love nobody.ā
Itās simple, but the concept of moving forward without the people who made life worth living for you, is a really powerful one. Rondo seems almost in awe of the power of that understanding, as memories flash across the screen and a childrenās choir sings the chorus.
āSubstance Abuseā sounds exactly like how substance abuse feels. Everything is dulled, the world around you becomes a hologram of itself, as if youāre stepping back from reality to look through a sideways prism. Loe Shimmy, hailing from the same impoverished county in Florida as Kodak Black, encapsulates this feeling in what sounds like a muted disco party. Itās dance music, but low key.
Loe sails through the vibrations with his raspy undertones, offering lifestyle incantations like heās in touch with the spiritual realm. The video is shimmery with technicolor tremors. Loe raps about the peace heās been searching for, the drug cocktails heās been consuming, and his exploits with women. The raps feel like theyāre coming at you from a distance, sent through the filters of his shades and the heady fog heās living in. This is what world-building looks like.
Floridaās Wizz Havinn pays heavy homage to old school Gucci, spitting over an ā06 Zaytoven-type beat with more modern drums. And Wizz does it justice ā rapping with an incline on each bar with some serious flexes. The price of each tooth is 100K, the windows have such a heavy tint you canāt even see him; heās got grandmas handling thousands of dollars worth of shrooms. If you had any doubt, the second half of the video is literally a freestyle over a Gucci beat.
Thereās a real sociopolitical analysis to be done on street rappers coming out in favor of Trump. Thereās an enormous confluence of factors, but itās always made sense to me at least on a basic relatability level. Trump presents as a āget money,ā guy, heās had to stand alone and cut off āratsā from his crew, and loyalty is his biggest sticking point in an ally. He operates like a mafia boss to enrich himself, and how many rappers have compared themselves to guys like that? Thereās a lot more at play here, but it sadly makes sense that 42 Dugg is a supporter.
āLast Ones Leftā is a bootstraps anthem. It doesnāt need to be stated that Trump has never had to lift himself up, but heās a brilliant self-promoter in making people believe that he has. Detroitās 42 Dugg actually did it, and so did Floridaās Trigga500k. Trigga asks how he could trust anybody when he barely trusts himself, and raps about how he made his own way from the very start. Dugg chops up Triggaās flow, and touches on how there was nobody there for him when he was broke. It makes you feel like anything is possible, which is how Trump makes his supporters feel. Hereās to hoping that the feeling isnāt strong enough to deliver him the White House again.
What else is there to say about Mozzy? One of the greatest to do it over the last 15 years. Every song he touches is gold, and he doesnāt get nearly enough shine. Iām not sure people outside the West Coast understand how many super fans he has out here. I know four to give people personally who hang on his every word and recite bangers from 2015 like theyāre the hottest songs out right now.
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