Image via AJRadico/Instagram (Shot by Joshua Kissi)
Steven Louis did indeed make a football move. Upon further review, the call on the field is overturned.
To illustrate a parable about change, let us consider the Jeep Wrangler automobile and Switchâs R&B classic, âI Call Your Name.â In 1979, Bobby DeBarge sketched out his first major hit for Berry Gordyâs imprint. That same year, the United States auto industry produced new vehicles at unseen rates, and Jeep gleefully boasted about how their trucks outperform military tanks (an admittedly weird flex but at least an earnest one from a postwar expansionist).
The selling point here was a commercially-accessible four-wheel drive vehicle â one that represented both a freedom of movement and a conquering of space still unclaimed after the Eisenhower highway revolution. The Wrangler debuted seven years later, and became Jeepâs first open effort to court regular on-road drivers. Do everyday cruisers need the torque requisite to scale the back side of a large mountain? Itâs less about the movement itself, more about the imagery of conquest. Around that time, DeBarge was incarcerated on drug trafficking charges. Heâll pass from AIDS complications shortly after his release.
In 2006, âI Call Your Nameâ reached its radio apex, but only as the skeleton instrumental for âThrow Some Dsâ. The terrain doesnât matter and the four-wheel drive is certainly irrelevant for Rich Boy; what we care about here is how massive and shiny those wheels can look. Jeep rolls with CGI gorillas in an advertising campaign for âbigger, better, bolder.â
Here in the present, Rich Boy is not rich but behind bars. Jeepâs ownership, Stellanis, is a subject of a historic autoworkers strike. The Wrangler is getting lapped by its compact SUV counterparts, but no one is buying new cars these days anyway. And the original Switch tune is translated through another generational game of telephone: New Yorkâs AJRadico uses it to ride through the Village on his way to brunch with a date that resembles PinkPantheress. âPut the route in the WranglerâŠwe make it sound like an anthem,â he murmurs.
This version sounds sedated and, refreshingly, a lot smaller. Maximum bigness has been exhausted. The ride itself has never mattered less, and thatâs a good thing. Maybe itâs finally, simply just about the person behind the wheel. Hereâs to a safe drive home for Radico.
In astronomy, an aeon comprises a billion years. In the Final Fantasy video game series, an aeon is the life force of the sacrificed, summoned in righteousness to vanquish enemies of the peace. On H.T. III, an âAeonâ is a 2:40 peyote dosing shared between cosmic nomads Chester Watson and Gabe âNandez.
The latter is the machete-wielding son of two United Nations workers who grew up in Haiti, Tanzania and Canada before settling in New York City; he raps in four languages and flows like a shamanic Hell on Earth-era Prodigy. âVoodoo, we donât bow down to the same shit,â he snarls, making reluctant offerings to the most high while warding off visions of drought and apocalypse. Itâs Shaolin and Jerusalem mutating in the Lower East Side; psychedelic prayers left conspicuously unaddressed.
These two are reporting live from somewhere we simply cannot reach, and itâs not quite a billion years or a bestial recasting, but spacetime seems stuck in mescaline sapling when Chester slowly mutters that âlife moving rapidly.â They donât do this shit for free, but it would be wrong to withhold these visions from the folks that need them most. Argovâs production work is hypnotic and disorienting, and the entirety of âNandezâs H.T. III is recommended whenever things down here feel hopelessly, restrictively ordinary.
The engines rev and smoke out, the checkered flag ceremoniously waves, the ladies shriek and two of Milwaukeeâs finest upstarts are all-out street racing. Problemchild414 simply says, âletâs go, good looking bro,â as the first 10 seconds of âDemon Timeâ sound like a Starsky & Hutch chase interlude. From there, itâs a high-speed blur, the beat whipped down to 808s buzzes and claps as if it stuck its head out the window pushing 100 mph and everything else flew away. It may recall the chaotic minimalism of fellow local talents AyooLii and Certified Trapper, but Problem Child and Dâdoe have a unique chemistry that almost recalls a midwestern Biggie and Kim. Sheâs concerned that weâre not eating enough; he swears that youâll get this PPP back. Passing a French bulldog and flipping burgers on the grill, âDemon Timeâ is slight but punchy. Set your watch accordingly.
Taxonomically, culturally and even colloquially, dogs and chickens are just not the same thing. With a few notably stupid exceptions, being labeled a dog is a good thing. Getting likened to a chicken is never good, full stop. Even serving chickens, which implies big money on the table and overall bosslike operations, still carries a connotation of desperation and struggle. 2023 was finally the year that Deland, FLâs Goldenboy Countup graduated from being the self-proclaimed Chicken Man to the leader of the Dawg Pound. After ascending through four Chicken Man mixtape installments, Goldenboyâs out with his most compelling work to date. Much of Dawg Pound is cold-blooded and hot-headed, but âRecklessâ paves a strip of velvet over the mud and gravel. Lush saxophones and funky bass set up a confession with the pastor, as âCentral Floridaâs sargentâ sits with a weapon in the pew. His flow is jerky and his voice croaks, ensuring his listener stays both captivated and horrified. Itâs a big step forward for Goldenboy, from clucks in the coup to barks on the front line.
SYC Jimm recently survived a targeted shootout in Daytona Beach. BLP Kosher is motivated by something called a âDreidel Twin.â On its surface, the partnership seems about as natural as a peanut butter and sardine sandwich, perhaps a scrapped script for a 2000s buddy comedy between Shawn Wayans and Seth Rogen. Of course, that thinking âAinât Original,â and the joy of a democratized internet means that these two dudes can exist at the same time and even put out a slapper of a song together. Hailing from Bunnell, FL, Jimm is the most recent signee to Atlanta powerhouse Quality Control, and his delivery recalls the slipperiness of a young Peewee Longway. Kosher has aloofly-funny bars accented by sharp vowel pronunciation, think BabyTron on a Broward County sabbatical. SYC Jimmâs Highly Favored is out this week via QC. Separating meat and dairy is a personal choice, but keeping these two together seems like good business.
âJenn Jenn Jennâ is a self-fulfilling paradox trapped in a hyperbaric, zaza-smoke pressure chamber. Jenn Carter canât stand the way her name gets bandied around the city, ignoring desperate beef requests from local dropouts and thirsty opps. In looping her name to anchor a blistering two-minute freestyle, though, the Brooklyn firebrand ensures that it stays ringing at increasingly higher volume. Thereâs no space for nuance, much less a breather or ceasefire, just black-and-white shutter shots of the guys and a frenzied Carter barring straight from the camera rig. Say her name in the mirror three times and her 41 crew pops up and raids your fridge. âThey cannot mention my name âcuz Iâm lit,â she growls. Sure seems like theyâre set up to fail here.
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