Category Archives: atlanta

We Come To Shut Shit Down

Posted by SergDun on

Loko – Playing No Games

Sammy Sam – Set It Off

you need this Big Oomp mixtape, it’s really my favorite shit out right now. Fuck that pussy shit they feeding you, get some more Loko and Sammy Sam in your ears. Some older joints but there are some dope ass tracks on there. Personally I would have liked to see Intoxicated show up but who knows whats up with them dudes. Baby D is still locked up so you don’t get much of him. Still I’m starving for crunk shit these days and  I’ve had this shit on repeat since I copped it. To many motherfuckers rapping about bitch shit right now. I need some angry stuff to balance that happy ass white boy black boy shit out. The mixtape aint all crunk but there is just enough to satisfy me for now. I still wish motherfuckers would make more angry rap, being angry is more fun than smiling and dancing. Holler at that trapsandtrunks for the full mixtape

Lyrics: Gucci Mane – “Weird”

Posted by Jordan on

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Gucci Mane – “Weird”

Well “Weird” certainly lives up to its name. The beat sounds like someone (I’m assuming Zaytoven) took a sledgehammer to an existing Zaytoven beat and then tried to piece it back together. It’s a really odd and interesting production, but if it is Zay it’s not thaaaat far off from, say, “First Day Out” or any one of his other beats that are really layered and have all these counterpointing keyboard riffs bouncing off each other.

Gucci’s verses are structured pretty appropriately to this beat, which is to say not at all. That said, the track doesn’t really feel stilted which is pretty amazing if you just try and read the lyrics back to yourself. He strings everything together though, totally in control. “Weird” really reminds me of a slightly less frantic version of the insane free association raps that Wayne was doing on that old Lil Weezyana tape. In terms of Gucci though, the verses are pretty reminiscent of the way he cannibalized his lines on “Wonderful.” Also his ad-libs on this are insane, like if a Komodo dragon was a rapper.

Anyway there’s a few things I know I got wrong here, so if you’ve got any corrections leave them in the comments.

(intro)
jingle bells
bubble kush smells
675 one ounce
my trap do numbers, chickens all summers
but come back dawg we’re out (out)

my swag turned up, my swag got an amp
your tramp seen the champ and her pussy got damp
chickens with the stamp
i count so much money that my fingers got a cramp
if you’re not with that camp i suggest you better vamp
i’m rollin up the plant
gucci mane’s an alien and you’re not even ant
never say can’t, ball, kevin durant
camp shine like lamps; guns, grass game gramp
crack a egg, that’s my charm, like an omelette on my arm
cuz my diamonds are my sons, yellow diamonds for my mom
he’ll go to the prom, sellin dope what i was doin
lamborghini, beemer, corvettes and my ten year class reunion

my flow so weird
diamonds same color as santa claus beard
ho ho hoes i think santa claus here
dashing through the snow in my old school chevrolet
over the hills we go, nina, i sold so much dope

my car got personality, the grille be smiling, honey
my rims are very charming and my leather seats are comfy
gucci major money shawty i get crazy cloudy
have a baby by me probly maybe i’ll buy you an audi
maui wowie, stupid cloudy, loudy got me rowdy rowdy
chevy caprice 73 play master p im bout it bout it
prints color mariah carey, if they’re candid ask about it
tell em that big gucci said it, so icey get stupid with it
drop top be, passenger seat celebrity
seven chains on so gucci mane shining heavily
cocaine heavenly, soft white prejudice
all white bricks same color as my necklace

my flow so weird
diamonds same color as santa claus beard
ho ho hoes i think santa claus here
dashing through the snow in my old school chevrolet
over the hills we go, nina, i sold so much dope

[???] jumper, i can’t throw a slider
but gucci mane’s a rider, slide by any spider
spiker, viper, vette with rally striper
tiger stripe pits in my house, ready to bite ya
standards way higher, don’t have time to tie em
cocaina fry em, gas don’t cut the eye uh
bags full of kushy, beg a pussy to push me
brick ya from the roofie, uses it for a cushion
gushin, whippin, my watch is good lookin
attractive, handsome, damn that bitch is lookin
gucci— admit it, realest that ever did it
committed, my ceiling’s on penny gutter and gritty

my flow so weird
diamonds same color as santa claus beard
ho ho hoes i think santa claus here
dashing through the snow in my old school chevrolet
over the hills we go, nina, i sold so much dope

jingle bells
bubble kush smells
675 one ounce
my trap do numbers, chickens all summers
but come back dawg we’re out (out)

Jap/Dro/Big Kuntry – “How We Get”

Posted by Jordan on

Jap ft. Young Dro and Big Kuntry – “How We Get” (prod. by Zaytoven) (via DGB)

So this is another loopy, sing-song celebratory jam to file next to those K.E. joints. Not surprised that this is coming from Zaytoven either seeing as he’s been killing it with these type of bleepy synths since forever but I’ve never heard a beat from him with such an overt and driving melody so I’m inclined to chalk it up to the influence of swag music. All the verses are pretty dope but Dro’s stuck with me because he so shamelessly cops from Yung LA, but the way he effortlessly slides in between LA-style whiny (and endearing) singing and his typical mealy-mouthed car raps is pretty amazing and organic. And Big Kuntry has the best punchlines \(o_O)/. He kinda sounds like DJ Paul, no?

I’m not totally sure what to think of these songs except that I like them. They’re certainly really positive and happy songs— not that that really means anything generally, but they’re nice to hear in the summer. They remind me of when everyone gets drunk and start singing off-key. Good times shit. Atlanta rappers are having fun.

K.E., producer of the summer?

Posted by Jordan on

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Dirty Red – “M.O.N.E.Y.” (prod. by K.E.)
Young Squad – “Turn My Swag Up” (prod. by K.E.)

K.E.’s the guy who did “Swag Surfin’”, which for a “who the hell are these guys?” single that no one will remember in three months is pretty amazing. The chorus is one of the best pop-rap hooks of the year if you care about that kind of thing (I do), and it’s basically built around K.E.’s beat, which is as melodic as it is totally flat and thin. Almost all of K.E.’s tracks follow the same template as “Swag Surfin’” with these totally fake horn blasts burying blippy keyboards and drums that sound like he’s poking holes in styrofoam cups, but his reliance on these plastic midi horns gives his beats a real sense of regality and they work especially well as sort-of underdog anthems. These two tracks sound like kids trying to replicate the, for lack of a better term, kingliness of “What You Know” and they succeed in a sense because K.E. is able to make the tinny feel just as huge as a Toomp beat. This stuff is obviously also post-snap, but where “Laffy Taffy” and “Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It” were all about space and clicks and hisses, K.E. beats smush sounds together like a granola bar. He’s great at writing these circular synth melodies that give his songs a melodic underpinning (to be honest they sound kind of like nursery rhymes, but not in the obnoxious way like “Chain Hang Low”) and on tracks like “M.O.N.E.Y.” and “Turn My Swag Up” he reminds me of nu-Jim Jonsin if the guy wasn’t trying to make it on NOW compilations with every song. K.E.’s production aesthetic is very much “of the radio” and yet he has been able to define the sound of underground Atlanta (along with guys like Nard & B) while at the same time having a melodic sensibility that has helped him carve out a sound that is very much his own.

K.E.’s YouTube channel

OJ Mix

Posted by Jordan on

In the past week or so, four songs have leaked with incredible OJ verses, and it really seems to me like he’s stepped his game up from even just last year. He sounds remarkably confident to me right now, like this little buzz he caught from Gucci and probably even Soulja Boy has really emboldened and solidified his style. He just seems like he belongs right now, and even when he’s on a song with Fabolous and Juelz he doesn’t seem out of place— in fact, guys like that seem lost in OJ’s dust to me. And that’s not to prop up OJ as more than he is, but I think he’s gotten to the point where his style isn’t a substitute for his rapping. Instead it’s a totally unique and singular flow used by someone who is also a great rapper and who just so happens to be blowing everyone else on tracks out of the water.

So, I made this mix of the four verses. This is the first time I’ve ever blended tracks into each other and I did this in about 45 mins on GarageBand so the blending is truly horrible. These are the songs:

“Hustlers Anthem 09 (rmx)” -> “Hottest in the Hood (rmx)” -> “Superman High” -> “Gold Grill Shawty”

OJ Mix

Another post about OJ

Posted by Jordan on

Gorilla Zoe ft. Gucci Mane and OJ Da Juiceman – “Helluvalife”

Haven’t heard the whole Zoe album yet (do I want to?) but I was naturally HIGHLY INTRIGUED by the Gucci/OJ collaboration. It’s about the fifth best Zoe/Gucci song that exists in the world (and about the 1,800th best Zaytoven beat), and it’s really only notable for OJ’s verse, made possible by the fact that Gucci appears to not be trying and Gorilla Zoe is now apparently incapable of not singing. OJ’s verse packs the vitality that all his verses seem to have, and it’s almost the quintessential OJ verse in a way because he rides along shouting as he does (actually starts off the verse biting Gucci’s Michael Jackson diamonds line from “Light Show”) not saying much but commanding attention, but he hits this line where it’s almost like he should be taking a breath except he goes “YOUNG JUICE MAN/ GODDAMN I’M A HUSTLA” and it’s an almost unexplainable “aahh” moment, like all the gears in his verse finally locked into place. It’s the kind of thing that seems tossed off until it’s chopped and screwed on an “anthemic chorus”, except with OJ the anthemic part is completely instant.

Tomorrow I’m going to post this video of Zaytoven that’s probably old news but dude is basically my favorite producer doing it right now and it shows him fucking around with a keyboard to get the burbly bleep noises that are almost his trademark so it will be a cool nerdy thing at least.

This new Fabo

Posted by Jordan on

Here’s the mp3: Fabo – “Spaceship Man”

Cherish new rap’s original weirdo streamlining his outlandishness into an actual song, a kind of rap/kind of singing thing that’s more in the vein of quicksilver modern r&b like Janelle Monáe or John Legend’s “Green Light” (an André 3000 feature) than snap or post-snap or whatever. Just as much as we love Fabo wilding over empty spaces in his schizophrenic hyena howl, it’s just as nice to hear him doing a fully-formed song that doesn’t sacrifice that singular personality and vision. Pray for reign.

David also posted about the song here and got sad when no one commented

Juice

Posted by Jordan on

OJ Da Juiceman: “Trap Work”

Working out why I like Gucci understudy OJ Da Juiceman hasn’t come easy to me. On one hand, dude is almost like an elaborate joke, just some ad-lib crutching no-name co-signed by the right ATL people to see exactly what we’re willing to accept in our post-Jeezy, post-snap rap landscape. Juice’s ad-libs sound like Chappelle’s Prince being punched in the gut, and his flow is so flagrantly one-note it’s basically celebratory. But on the other, Juice has emerged as a dude to watch in 09, another in a lengthening line of trap-not-rap stars reveling in the understated brilliance of post-D4L everyman rap.

If Juice is not a pure Gucci facsimile then he’s unabashed about copping style. He loops his raps in that same singsong playground cadence that Gucci settles into when he’s really got a foothold in a beat, but Juice’s flow is a little more stilted, and in a way it’s kind of got the same lockstep qualities of a marching army battalion — predictable yet dope. If anything, his songs are hypnotic in a way, at once because they all kinda sound the same and because Juice raps non-stop. The tape has a propulsive quality that basically every other mixtape lacks these days, and Juice raps his ass off like rap might get him somewhere, which I guess isn’t totally unique but it still jumps out off the speakers.

As far as the rapping goes, Juice doesn’t stray far from trapping and its benefits (also touches on fucking), but he’s got a trap star’s flair for making the old seem just a little bit new again, or at the very least still (dope boy) fresh. And maybe most importantly, he sounds like he’s having a great time rapping, and if that’s not his most redeeming quality then it’s eminently notable, cause I’m not getting tired of ATL good times rap anytime soon.

BONUS FOR BUDDING OJ DA JUICE FANBOYS: The FADER meets up with Juice at a French restaurant or something and let’s dude speak his mind. He seems like a good dude. More people should do this.

One

Posted by Jordan on

Every time I listen to The Recession or just see Jeezy on TV or in a magazine or whatever it reminds me that he’s the only real rap star we’ve got right now. Wayne stopped trying over a year ago, to the point where I can’t decide whether him mugging it up with Kid Rock at a country awards show is worse because I didn’t even bat an eye or because he mugged it up with Kid Rock at a country awards show. Kanye was always more pop star than rap star but even on that front he’s on a sabbatical. You could maybe argue T.I., who sold out but still really went at it in some places on Paper Trail, but we won’t be seeing his face for a while. After that who’s left? Jay? Nas? Plies and Ross? BET is still trying to pretend like Nelly is famous.

I feel kind of lazy even writing about this video. For one, videos don’t matter anymore, so this doesn’t carry the weight of “Ha” or “Get Ya Hustle On” even though it desperately tries to. I felt this way after the “Put On” video emerged, which did way less than this video does with a song that’s worth way more. Secondly, Jeezy’s not doing anything special in a video that is pure formula (right down to the McCain/Palin masks), so it would be foolish to classify it as anything more than a bullet point as to why The Recession is great and why its existence matters.

Still, it’s intense and moving to see Jeezy rapping this dark, sinister and hopeless song in the middle of a mosh pit. It’s still prescient to see a song called “Crazy World” visualized like this. Even the splices of video showing falling buildings and alligators are artfully done. And for some reason, Jeezy riding around in a Go Kart seems to oddly fit in.

Put simply, Jeezy seems to be the only major rapper that cares, not even about real rap, but about the way a famous rapper should carry himself. There’s no Ross-like fake kingpin shit that is appropriate in song but smothers you elsewhere. There’s none of the shameless genre-hopping that’s makes Jay and Wayne fans embarrassed to own their albums. He doesn’t play the acoustic guitar or have a blog or a freestyle up on YouTube every two hours. He’s humble, smart and judicious. He has the hood on his back but he doesn’t flaunt it, and in the case of “Vacation”, he gives them as much power as they give him. He puts his art out, take it or leave it.

I sense that Jeezy feels like being a rap star is his duty, both to rap and his fans. I sense that he feels like he’s carrying the torch, whereas Wayne and countless others feel like they’re the flame. This is why, to me, he carries himself so gracefully.

And lastly, besides the music being really great, there’s a reason why The Recession is so powerful: Jeezy lets it speak for itself.

Soulja Boy + Gucci Mane

Posted by Jordan on

Soulja Boy + Gucci Mane – “Bands”

Soulja Boy + Gucci Mane, Yo Gotti – “Shopping Spree”

Soulja Boy + Gucci Mane, Shawty Lo (<–please ignore) – "Gucci Bandanna"

Where Soulja Boy sits commercially now is, I imagine, a mystery to everyone at his label. After coasting into 2008 on the back of one of the biggest pop singles of the decade, he’s trickled out a few more singles off his album, the biggest of which, “Donk”, made a small dent on rap radio in the South but that’s about it. The supposed first big single off his follow-up, “iDance”, was directly passed along to the morgue about two days after it showed up on YouTube. His new single, “Bird Walk” (video at the end of this post), is a Soulja Boy single to the core: clattering percussion, simple but catchy keyboard line, tons of chanting, huge chorus. If the kid is able to get something this confrontational on to pop radio then he might actually be sticking around for a while.

Over the summer he started posting mixtape tracks to his YouTube channel, some of which featured guest verses from Gucci Mane, one of the first major rappers, to my knowledge, to collab with Soulja Boy. For Soulja Boy, having a respected Southern MC on his songs both legitimizes his art in his mind and, more importantly, gives him a foil aside from the legitimately brain dead Arab. As for Gucci, the Soulja Boy tracks provide for him harder, rawer beats unlike the (really well-produced) Zone 4/Zone 4-rip off joints that highlight his last solo album Back to the Traphouse. But, unlike countless other stuff that Gucci’s gone over this year, the Soulja Boy beats aren’t too mixtape-y. They’re noisy but not muddled, not at all hi-fi but not DatPiff quality either.

Mostly though, the songs allow Gucci, a dude who has his eyes on pop music (or at least commercially successful rap music) and a knack for hitting his mark, to enter into the world of a kid who’s trying to make the hardest, most nonconforming, most singular pop-rap around. They also make sure that Soulja Boy has good rapping on his songs. It’s an excellent mix.

Soulja Boy – “Bird Walk”