Tweet
sup fellas heres my latest review on Big T's new album:
The Windy City got a little bit colder last year – in every sense of “cold” as used by Kanye on 808s & Heartbreak. Like most large cities, Chicago has never been a stranger to gangs or violent crime, but the rising murder rate and air of alarm about a “lost generation” of teenage youths committing many of the acts has cast a pall over the city’s name.
In a genre where post-90s cynicism still doesn’t trump the appeal of the authenticity of someone’s hood stripes, being a gangsta rapper from Chicago is a significantly more problematic conceit than it was before someone like Chief Keef simultaneously became a hot-button talking point for glorifying urban blight and a hit-making trap-rap prodigy. It’s the catch-22 of being a rapper – the pain, struggle, and crime of your hometown or block is what informs your music and appeal, but it’s also very much a real cancer to the same community you came from. It’s not a new concept, but it’s one that becomes more of an issue as rap has installed itself as such an everyday facet of the record industry machine that even the discussion that actually is happening is less pervasive than it would’ve been during rap’s teen years. In a time where people at least seem to be more removed from the implications and context of rap’s more nihilist expressions, do we care more about how a rapper says things more than what they say? Is that even a problem? Does the undeniable quality of Big T‘s Black Friday over-ride how cold his lyrics can be?
Depends. The rationalization of gangsta rap was that it was doing the work that the major news networks should’ve been doing, which gave the darker elements of the style a bit of levity. But, not only were many of the tales cartoonish exaggerations or outright fabricated, but as labels smartened up to its sales potential, raps about drugs, misogyny, gang life, and the like became rote. 24-hour news networks began inundating viewers with all the agoraphobia-inducing negativity they could ever need while all the token “conscious” gangsta rap tracks couldn’t really remedy the redundant self-parody the genre became.
It’s hard to separate the art from the social context is sprang from, but truthfully, how much you can enjoy a Big T or Shotgun Suge mixtape is entirely dependent on the reality of your surroundings and your personal morals. Every music fan has to figure out their own scale of acceptability, but Big T is so consistently dope on tracks that at some point you not be bothered about the lack of “uplifting” songs to offset Terrance’s chilly, almost enthusiastic rapping about hustling and pimping. As a victim of gun violence, Big T might have some personal thoughts about what his city is going through, but they are conspicuously absent from Black Friday. Considering the tape only falters as it’s closing tracks roll the NY-style club synths in, some more introspection would’ve been a great addition to the release.
Black Friday is currently available for free download from DatPiff.
http://www.datpiff.com/Various-Artis...pe.421690.html
The Windy City got a little bit colder last year – in every sense of “cold” as used by Kanye on 808s & Heartbreak. Like most large cities, Chicago has never been a stranger to gangs or violent crime, but the rising murder rate and air of alarm about a “lost generation” of teenage youths committing many of the acts has cast a pall over the city’s name.
In a genre where post-90s cynicism still doesn’t trump the appeal of the authenticity of someone’s hood stripes, being a gangsta rapper from Chicago is a significantly more problematic conceit than it was before someone like Chief Keef simultaneously became a hot-button talking point for glorifying urban blight and a hit-making trap-rap prodigy. It’s the catch-22 of being a rapper – the pain, struggle, and crime of your hometown or block is what informs your music and appeal, but it’s also very much a real cancer to the same community you came from. It’s not a new concept, but it’s one that becomes more of an issue as rap has installed itself as such an everyday facet of the record industry machine that even the discussion that actually is happening is less pervasive than it would’ve been during rap’s teen years. In a time where people at least seem to be more removed from the implications and context of rap’s more nihilist expressions, do we care more about how a rapper says things more than what they say? Is that even a problem? Does the undeniable quality of Big T‘s Black Friday over-ride how cold his lyrics can be?
Depends. The rationalization of gangsta rap was that it was doing the work that the major news networks should’ve been doing, which gave the darker elements of the style a bit of levity. But, not only were many of the tales cartoonish exaggerations or outright fabricated, but as labels smartened up to its sales potential, raps about drugs, misogyny, gang life, and the like became rote. 24-hour news networks began inundating viewers with all the agoraphobia-inducing negativity they could ever need while all the token “conscious” gangsta rap tracks couldn’t really remedy the redundant self-parody the genre became.
It’s hard to separate the art from the social context is sprang from, but truthfully, how much you can enjoy a Big T or Shotgun Suge mixtape is entirely dependent on the reality of your surroundings and your personal morals. Every music fan has to figure out their own scale of acceptability, but Big T is so consistently dope on tracks that at some point you not be bothered about the lack of “uplifting” songs to offset Terrance’s chilly, almost enthusiastic rapping about hustling and pimping. As a victim of gun violence, Big T might have some personal thoughts about what his city is going through, but they are conspicuously absent from Black Friday. Considering the tape only falters as it’s closing tracks roll the NY-style club synths in, some more introspection would’ve been a great addition to the release.
Black Friday is currently available for free download from DatPiff.
http://www.datpiff.com/Various-Artis...pe.421690.html
Comment