Stuey Rock – Drunker Den a Fool / Shinin

The melodic ATL pop style is still one of the most critical slept-on strains of rap music, from your Roscoe Dash’s to your Yung LA‘s. But my favorite in this category 2011 was the Stuey Rock / Future split EP FDU & Free Bandz, which was my first introduction to “Tony Montana.”

For the past 1.5 years I was working an incredibly stressful job that required a commute to the outer burbs to make cold calls all day. Fridays became celebrations, where my roomate Micah and I would drink too much whiskey & soda and bounce around the kitchen while blasting rap music and practicing rapper hands. In the wake of Flockaveli, this tradition reached new levels of personal importance; I’m not sure if there is a more therapeutic end to a hectic work week than shouting “Live by the gun, die by the gun,” but I do know my neighbors loved us.

FDU & Free Bandz joined the tradition; Micah’s favorite track was “Tony Montana,” which he proceeded to listen to approx 400 times per week. Whether dressing up for a date, coding (Micah is a software engineer) at his laptop or hitting the shower in a bath towel, he was blasting “Tony Montana” from a set of earbuds turned so loud that it was audible throughout the apartment. That shit was a hit in our apartment even before the streets were feeling it.

I think a split EP is about all the Future I can put up with at a time, and I’ve never been convinced his particular gifts (gift?) has transcended FDU & Free Bandz. But the guy who really got slept on was Stuey Rock, whose “Drunker Den a Fool” was my favorite whiskey-and-soda-in-the-kitchen-Friday-after-work music since Flockaveli. It’s a pretty key accomplishment for a dude who, as far as I was concerned, otherwise had only “Nymphomaniac” to his name, even if it was one of the best of the post-“Drifter” jook anthems.