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Image via Big Leano
Next up from Boston: Big Leano
Last week, hip hop obscura savant and proud Boston representative Jeremy Karelis sent me an email about Boston rapper Big Leano. I pressed play on “Everything Good.” While my general inclination is to dive deep—to dig around my brain for historical precedent, to analyze elements of technique and style, to search for the perfect combination of adjectives to explain whatever it is that I’m hearing—some songs and artists don’t require that much mental machination.
A simple reply email:
“This is rad as fuck.”
Big Leano’s music doesn’t defy critique or analysis, but it is the sort of hip hop that lengthy, labored writing can drain of its fun and effect. Big Leano raps hypnotically about drugs over dope beats. He’s clever, occasionally funny, not far removed from fellow Bostonian Cousin Stizz in his balance of street observation, low key wit, and a predilection for infectious repetition. It is what it is, it’s well-executed, and it’s catchy. Sometimes, to ask for much more than that is to be greedy.
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Image via Conway
Conway – “Wraith – Ful”
There’s a school of grim, cinematic street rap that relies on technical ability and a sort of low key production indebted to Alchemist at his most laid back—think Roc Marciano and Ka as the strongest examples. It’s a thin slice that typically satisfies certain kinds of rap fans—either Pitchfork-reading badge collectors who want to love it because they’re supposed to love it, or listeners who grew up on the gritty crime narratives of Kool G Rap, Mobb Deep, and Smif N’ Wessun and were conditioned to like their dose of hardcore delivered with assassin-like proficiency (of course there’s always overlap between these categories).
Buffalo rapper Conway earns a slot alongside Roc Marciano and Ka (and even holds his weight next to the former on “Rex Ryan” from his new project REJECT 2) with recent standout “Wraith-ful.” Tightly worded, loosely connected images and threats form a sort of impressionistic crime rap painting—like one of Marciano’s songs, “Wraith-ful” gives a gauzy glimpse of Conway’s world. Steely, measured, and violent, “Wraith-ful” reminds that beside the outsized gangster glorification of rappers like Rick Ross and the double-edged sword observations of rappers like Scarface, there exists a third choice: cold acceptance and depiction of criminal life, of a world with its own rules and realities apart from the gaze of mainstream society.
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Image via Sir E.U
Sir E.U – EBUKU
In a column that’s covered a fair array of idiosyncratic rappers, Maryland’s Sir E.U is perhaps one of the most intriguing and unusual, with a gift for inventive rhyme patterns, an expansive and particular vernacular, and a knack for choosing production that simultaneously complements his rapping and pushes it in unexpected directions.
E.U’s new project EBUKU begins with “Super Baby N*gga,” a song reminiscent of previous standout “NIKEBOY,” world-weary stream of conscious rapping cast against bouncy glitch hop—a restatement E.U’s blueprint of meandering observation, clever wordplay, and agile rapping. It’s a highlight on a hazy, cohesive project, a singular statement the feels like the product of narcotics, dimly lit basements, and a search for some sort of truth beyond the bounds of mainstream culture and opinion. Turn down the lights and lose yourself for 36 minutes.
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Image via Good Years
TTY – “Cindy Wei”
In years past, signing to a specific label represented a certain sensibility. Motown towers above all others as the quintessential “label-as-sound” (to the extent that the phrase “the Motown sound” immediately conjures early images of Marvin Gaye and The Supremes and the music architected by producers Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland, and Eddie Holland), but over the years labels like Def Jam, Death Row, Hyperdub, Stones Throw, and Mad Decent, to name a diverse few, cultivated recognizable aesthetics and imprints that gave prospective listeners a sense of what they’d be hearing before they pressed play.
With the great consolidation (and liquidation) of major labels in the past 15 years, corporate reshuffling cannibalized much of the distinctiveness that characterized certain companies. While Def Jam might still carry a certain historical connotation, it also just released a Justin Bieber album sonically inspired in large part by tropical house—it’s not quite what it was in the days of LL Cool J and the Beastie Boys. Change occurs, there’s nothing wrong with evolution, and in fact some labels—XL, Young Turks, 4AD—have developed a counterintuitive consistency, unpredictable from one release to the next save for an expectation of high quality and originality.
While still developing its personality and track record, London’s Good Years has already laid a foundation that let’s savvy listeners know they should pay attention to each new release, a careful balance built on strategic signings and steady, strong taste.
TTY, the newest addition to the Good Years roster, won’t satisfy a wide swath of rap listeners, but their low key cool makes single “Cindy Wei” sound like the perfect sound track for a Boiler Room performance somewhere in a secret Brooklyn warehouse. TTY’s sound and style make logical additions to the Good Years umbrella, suggesting sounds from other eras (it’s hard to hear their dead pan rapping and not think at least a bit of The Streets) and expanding the label’s experimental tastes.
Watch the video for “Cindy Wei” below and listen to the group’s new EP 3:30 below that.
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Image via RobOlu
RobOlu ft. AyePatt – “Thug and Kanye Planet”
Atlanta’s RobOlu continues to be one of the city’s more mercurial underground creators, a rapper with grim energy and a gruffness to his voice that suggests darkness observed and internalized. New single “Thug and Kanye Planet” channels that internal gloom as effectively as any song RobOlu has released so far, building off of a Young Thug interview—which can be heard excerpted at the end of the song—as its central inspiration.
