Album:Motel6
Producer: Unknown
DB Tha General is a gangster rapper from Oakland who came up in the dying days of the Hyphy explosion and has since gone on to become one of the city's most distinctive talents. Alas, like so many of his fellow northern Californian gangster rap peers, the combination of the Bay Area underground rap scene being a self-contained universe, internet-unsavvy management, and an unwillingness to give his music away for free has meant that DB has remained largely unknown. That is, beyond being one of rappers Kreayshawnshotvideos for back in 2009, and for having a pinched nasal squeal of a voice that's similar to Lil Boosie.
While it's true DB is another sawn-off Satan of a rapper like Lil Boosie, other than their vocal and physical similarities, the comparisons between both rappers are fairly superficial: DB's flow—which he's dubbed as ‘Gas’—is much more energized than Boosie's, and his aesthetic is very much region-specific to his own Oakland stomping grounds. A good example of DB's style would be "Savage" from his new album Motel6: the song finds him roasting coward rappers and women with dry vaginas while boasting that "I'm the shit, that's why you see all these flies." Then toasting deceased friends and T.I's crew Hustle Gang in his trademark hypersonic yelping barrage of words over production which sounds like the music the spaceship from Close Encounters Of The Third Kind would have made if it had landed at a Mac Dre show in 2003 rather than Devils Tower, Wyoming in 1977.
If you like the cut of DB's jib on "Savage" then there's a few other songs on his latest album also worth checking out: the intro over Fred Myrow & Malcolm Seagraves' Phantasm theme that was previously used by Doug E. Fresh, Mobb Deep, and Master P. The lead-off single "Turnt Out." And the new single "Man Down," a sequel to his own "Knock You Down" in all but official song title.
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