RAVEN MACK is a mystic poet-philosopher-artist of the Greater Appalachian unorthodox tradition. He does have an amazing PATREON, but also *normal* ARTIST WEBSITE too.

Wednesday, May 3

[HH3os] The My Name Is Krazy OLD trio

(1st round match-up 19 of 27)

We are all stereotypes, so much so that someone amongst us will start acting slightly contrarian enough – a way of separating from the crowd but without creating alienation – and that will be so great looking to all the sucka ass normies that pretty soon the slightly contrarian opinion is annexed (dare I say colonized?) into a new sub-stereotype. Thus, I am a “writer” (always use scare quotes for any dumb fucker that calls themselves a writer; they are guaranteed fools) but also a “blogger” and also “rap music aficionado” and really whatever any other stereotype needs to label me to either agree or disagree with me conclusively, without regard, as quickly as possible. You see, the important thing is to label everything and everyone, not to interact with it. Once everything (and everyone) is labelled, then you will fully understand all the world has to understand. Good luck on your journey, fellow idiot human. Here is today’s expert (as in all-knowing) whiteboy (as in predominately European heritage, but not in Europe no more) analysis (as in talking too goddamned much about stupid shit)…

Danny Brown – OLD
(released October 8, 2013; #5 on 2013 Pitchfork Albums of the Year list)
Danny Brown, during XXX, developed trademark Danny Brown dichotomy of high-pitched “I’m getting fucked up and don’t really give a fuck” style, and introspective calmer-voiced “damn, the shit I’ve seen is depressing.” As detailed before, I enjoy the depressing half of that dichotomy a bit more, but likely this is because I no longer get fucked up and am a depressing motherfucker a lot of times (not to mention depressed many times as well). With OLD, Brown begins to transfuse the two together more, to where sometimes he is calmly talking about rubbing on someone’s breasts right before going into what a fuckin’ hypocritical life he lives. The existential crisis is no gimmick here, and you can tell.
But beyond this growth of the two Danny Brown styles into one, like two birch sprouted closely together in the woods, he also realizes he has moved along the timeline away from some of the concepts of his earlier shit. He specifically mentions how trifling that is in “Dope Song”, how he’s not sitting on the stoop selling drugs no more. His life has changed, although it’s still fucked.
Don’t get it wrong though, he’s still talking about sexing with mad art sluts. (I put “with” in there and oddly it took away the sex shaming of it a little, because it was not being done to the art sluts, but with the art sluts, and there can be no denying that “art slut” would encompass one Daniel Xworth Brown as well.) But the multiple facets of DB are blending together, and he’s also attempting to trim away some of the redundant phat that’s starting to feel repetitive to him (an interesting thing, considering the next album in this trio). I don’t know, I didn’t think beforehand I liked this better than XXX, but afterwards I think I may. It’s better than I remembered, and I actually already remembered it as worthwhile. Danny Brown talks shit, and might grate on some folks nerves, and damn does he dress funny, but that dude is more honest than most fuckers cosplaying images for rap industry. If there was one rapper I’d like to see a serious documentary about (not one hyping up new album), it’d be Danny. SIX STARS (******)!

Pusha T – My Name Is My Name
(released October 8, 2013; #50 on 2013 Pitchfork Albums of the Year list)
It was about two-thirds of the way through this album the first time (each joint gets played twice through, beginning to end as manufactured creatively, in case you ain’t know how scientific my process is) that I became completely numb to the effect of cocaine rap. It is stupid and pointless, and the only reason people around me hype up Pusha T is because we have nothing else that has prominently come from Virginia in hip hop, other than bullshit pop machine stuff like Missy Elliott or Neptunes or Timbaland… basically robot music ready-made for the mall. So Pusha T, relatively speaking, seems legit. But fuck man, the cocaine rap shit is so… fucking… boring. I mean, I guess I can kinda give him half a prop (not a whole one) because he was one of the originators of that style, BUT GOD WHY DON’T YOU FUCKING RHYME ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE? Even mix in a different drug you are pretend moving on the streets. I don’t know, I hope it’s because he actually did have dirty hands at one point, and has cleaned up but still feels like he has to rhyme about that world, and is not comfortable with rapping about his new life of riding to Starbucks and shopping for sofas and mundane shit like that. But at this point, I’d rather hear him talk about an 40-minute drive through heavy Tidewater traffic to get to the Haverty’s furniture to find a new living room ensemble than more fucking cocaine rap. (The song with Kendrick briefly tricked me into tolerating cocaine rap for about 94 seconds each time, for full disclosure.) ONE STAR (*)!

YG – My Krazy Life
(released March 18, 2014; #27 on 2014 Pitchfork Albums of the Year list)
YG is Compton gangsta rap, but on that new era of non-gruff voiced style, where we finally admit that squeaky-sounding motherfuckers are sometimes the most psychopathic, putting behind our patriarchal beliefs that deep voice means more alpha. Maybe. YG uses the n-word a lot, like more than even n-word heavy genre of rap music does, and as expert whiteboy, I am unable to use the n-word in real life, naturally, and I fully accept them. I have had best friends at times who were not expert whiteboys like not even a little you could see it very clearly, and they would call me their n-word (lolol one time I was introduced to Mos Def by my boy Rob as that – his n-word, which was perhaps the most awkward moment of my life to that point), but growing up in the rural south, riding a schoolbus where there were three white kids, and the other two were my younger sisters, and also have legit racist family members, I stay the fuck way from that word. But apparently I don’t even type the word either, as this YG review has started out showing and proving, which seems weird to me. But if I don’t say it, should I type it? Is that perpetuating racialisms, or am I being ridiculous?
Doesn’t really matter, because this is the internet, and it’s far more important to put forth the appearance of righteous and interpersonal nobility than to actually do that in real life. This is all a grand theater of personal branding except nobody is buying shit so fuck it, let’s keep pretending. (Side note: if you still believe in any of the mythology behind America and exceptionalism and all that hoo-ha, you are as bad as the n-word users, but on an entirely different plain separate from education and environment, and one built on well I don’t know… kinda started rambling too long and forgot where I was going. But let’s pretend there’s a horrible historical word that begins with Q, and we can’t even say it due to the history involved. You are a fucking Q-word. I hate you.)
Oh yeah, the music… It was okay. I mean nothing extraordinarily great but it was entertaining, and it was fun to not say the n-word but think about how fun it would be to shoot a bunch of motherfuckers. Also when you really break down the logistics and economics of shit like breaking and entering (a favorite of YG, if his lyrics are true testimony), crime doesn’t pay, like not well at all. But if it’s the only job you can get, insert shrug emoji. THREE STARS (***)!

THE WINNER: I am someone who has had a love for drugs and self-medication in the past, and dabbled in petty criminality, nothing major (all felonies avoided, narrowly once or twice), so I’m down for drug-addled reflective crisis of self, not acting like street overlord or hard as fuck. I’m not hard as fuck; I like sitting in the back yard and just fucking loungin’, minimal drama, easy thoughts all day long. Danny Brown is the only one of these three I think could share a plastic Adirondack with me. YG would be chill probably, and I don’t know, Pusha T would probably start talking about politics or how Hillary should’ve gotten elected or some shit. I imagine he’s kind of a Q-word in real life now.

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