"Down On Me" ft. Ty Dolla $ign & 2 Chainz- DJ Mustard

Critics of de-facto ratchet-music producer DJ Mustard I'm no longer talking to you. Since Mustard first knocked rap upside the head with the stark, mechanical beat for "Rack City" all he’s done is creep into every corner of the rap landscape. 2013 saw him drop one of the year's best albums with the Ketchup mixtape and team up with gangster-crooner Teeflii for the endlessly replayable Fireworks.  Not even halfway into 2014, he and frequent collaborator YG leveled West Coast competitors with My Krazy Life. To say he's winning is a vast understatement, he's already won and it’s a landslide victory.

Despite the success, Mustard has yet to have an official studio release which will change when 10 Summers debuts later this year. If first single "Down On Me" is any indicator of the record's caliber, 10 Summers will be polished chrome. Though the producer doesn't rap himself, the track has every idiosyncrasy of a primo Mustard song. An eerie hum floats above the beat like the "lights over the Night Vale Arby's." Bass clonks rise up from the house party downstairs. Handclaps ring out with cultish fervor. Somewhere in the 
maelstrom a keyboard can be heard twinkling. "Weird" doesn’t begin to describe the effort. 

Fortunately, Mustard was able to recruit two of rap's burgeoning weirdoes for "Down On Me". Oversexed freakzoid Ty Dolla $ign mumble croons about having girls "walking funny" and doing the deed sans protection. It's all fairly deplorable behavior, but Dolla $ign so effortlessly catalogs it you end up leaning in to listen closely. 

However, no amount of attentive listening will be able to help with 2 Chainz. Though Chainz and DJ Mustard have only worked together once before, on the impeccable "I'm Different", "Down On Me" suggests they're attached at the hip. For everything Mustard beats are filled with they're rarely overstuffed, leaving rappers ample room to s***-talk to their heart's content. And no one in hip-hop right now does s***-talking quite like the man born Tauheed Epps. You need your own dictionary and a finger ready to hit rewind when Chainz comes on. If the Atlanta-drawl doesn't do you in, the ad-libs will. According to "Down On Me" he's paying car notes after copulating and goes "turtleneck in the summer." 10-plus listens and I'm still not sure what his sweater has to do with anything. But like a Mustard beat at large, his eccentricity should be enjoyed on its own accord. 

"Crib In My Closet" ft. A$AP Rocky & Rick Ross- 2 Chainz

Near the end of his lead-off verse on the churning collabo "Crib In My Closet", the indomitable 2 Chainz snarls "yeah I'm a motherf***ing poet." With such brazenness and delivered in such an oppressive climate, it’s hard to take the claim seriously. The same guy that once went by the moniker Tity Boi is now placing himself in the company of Rimbaud and Walt Whitman? It's enough to rankle anyone who enjoys "Mercy" up until the ATL-rapper makes his appearance.

But the declaration is so authoritative it’s hard not to take 2 Chainz seriously. Amongst the current trap-revivalists, he's comparable to someone like Allen Ginsburg. Every word he utters is comprehensible, but how exactly those words fit together becomes a mystery. As he laces up a pair of "Timbs" he sets aside his "peanut butter MCM" handbag. While he's had a history of intermingling food and fashion, "Feds Watching" immediately comes to mind, the peculiarity is in no way lessened. Who's ever seen a handbag before and thought "Jiffy"?

In some ways, he's the anti-A$AP Rocky which makes their particular partnering on the Metro Boomin track such a joy. 2 Chainz sprints towards the surreal, while Rocky's content to kickback in the land of the literal. When he talks about his collection of Prada from the '99 line you can rest assured it's not a product of his imagination. "I'm in Vogue, this winter, the runaway, no Insta," he waxes over the gothic chants and drum machine slithering. Everyone else needs to stage their photos and add filters when they hop on Instagram; all A$AP does is point and click. 

And in the picture "Crib In My Closet" snaps, you'll see Rick Ross looming large. Before you can say "huh" he's filling up his closet with 4000 pairs of shoes. A closet he can't tend to because he's sitting "second row at the fight." Ross is all about conspicuous consumption and in "Crib In My Closet" he devours everything in sight. He goes into seizures over how much his watch costs and buys up Floyd Mayweather's mansion just because. But for all of his chestpuffing, he can't compete with 2 Chainz. Ross has intentionally crafted himself as a Bill Gates figure no one could ever get at. Chainz is the everyman pulling rubber banded money out of Nike shoeboxes. For all of his enigmatic qualities, he's the most relatable one here.

What's New(s)?

The Killers' Brandon Flowers, Local Natives, Father John Misty, Dawes cover Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash's "lost album" Out Among the Stars dropped this Tuesday and it's been a surprisingly busy week for news surrounding the record. On Wednesday, we found out from Cash's son John Carter that "four or five" more album of unreleased material could see the light of day. And now, La Blogotheque has issued an Arturo Perez Jr. directed clip that features: Brandon Flowers of the Killers, Local Natives, Father John Misty, and Dawes reinterpreting tracks from Out Among the Stars and discussing Cash's importance to them.

Backed by Dawes, Brandon Flowers dives into "I Came to Believe" while reflecting on Cash's faith and storytelling abilities. Father John Misty covers June Carter Cash duet "Baby Easy Ride", a track he says features the husband and wife duo "winking at each other." And finally, Local Natives tackle the titular "Out Among the Stars" in their communal baroque pop style and pay tribute to the "duality of Johnny Cash."

 

2 Chainz and French Montana are "A-Rod"

Once ATL's reigning jester 2 Chainz was Akon (or at least his diamonds were) and now the endearingly goofy artist has apparently become NY Yankees third-basemen Alex Rodriguez. Accompanied by a surprisingly restrained Young Chop beat and a cogent French Montana, 2 Chainz compares himself to the suspended ball-player, citing his own $25 million a year payroll. With that high stack of chips he grabs up all the chinchilla he can, adds to his never-ending necklace collection, and pays for some introductory Spanish lessons (que pasa?). No word yet if 2 Chainz has passed his test for P.E.D.s or not.

While it hasn't been confirmed, there's a good chance "A-Rod" could appear on B.O.A.T.S. III, which 2 Chainz revealed in February he's been working on.

Check back Monday for more of the newest in new(s) and follow AllFreshSounds on Twitter for updates throughout the day.

What's New(s)?

Arctic Monkeys drop new track

The Arctic Monkeys fifth go-around on the LP circuit is entitled AM and it's out September 9 via Domino. To promote the record, the band has already released the stomping "Do I Wanna Know?" and the featherweight "2013" made the rounds as a leak before being taken down by BPI. Today another tune has slipped through the cracks. The unadorned "Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?" clocks in at under three minutes and sports a plainspoken Alex Turner on lead vocals. Unfortunately that tune has also become a casualty of copyright. That said it is slated to be released as a single in August, so check back in when that moment hits.

R. Kelly tells his "story"

Not far removed from triumphant hometown show at the 2013 Pitchfork Music Festival, R. Kelly returns with the pseudo-autobiographical "My Story", set to appear on his upcoming Black Panties album. Wedding his robo-vocals to trap drums and a subtle guitar strum, Kells grows out of the "Chi-town dirt" and celebrates the wealth that his ascendancy to R&B royalty has afforded him. A fairly subdued 2 Chainz pops up to "roll like cinnamon", while searching for a co-pilot. Just another chapter to add to the audacious R&B book Kelly has authored. 

         

Jim James extends tour

My Morning Jacket's Jim James has added fall dates to his solo-tour in support of the meditative Regions of Sound and Light of God. Of course you can currently see him with the rest of the band on tour for the massive Americanarama with Wilco and Bob Dylan in tow. The MMJ frontman's vocals will soon be reverberating throughout the Midwest as James stops off at St. Louis' Loufest and the Telluride blues festival. Enjoy a subdued live take of album-cut "State of the Art" and check out the dates after jump. 

 

9/6 - Birmingham, AL - Iron City 
9/7 - St. Louis, MO - Loufest @ Forrest Park
9/8 - Madison, WI - Majestic Theatre
9/10 - Omaha, NE - Slowdown 
9/11 - Lawrence, KS - Liberty Hall 
9/12 - Tulsa, OK - Cain's Ballroom 
9/15 - Telluride, CO - Telluride Blues & Brews Festival



Check back in again tomorrow for the newest in new(s).

"Feds Watching" ft. Pharrell- 2 Chainz

I'll never be a full-blooded member of the 2 Chainz team. It's got nothing to do with his former moniker being the ludicrous Tity Boi (there have been worse rap names, Yak Ballz anyone?), his gleeful goon image, or even his over-reliance on name-checking couture clothing labels (I really hope the dude's getting his YSL check by now). It's got everything to do with his irritating tendency to take a play or two, letting the ball drop when he's lost interest in the game. When he's bringing his A-game on tracks like "Mercy" he manages to make a seemingly dumb line "gettin' drunk and high at the same time, drinkin' champagne on an airplane," absolutely rousing. With "Beez in the Trap" he does the impossible and upstages an on-point Nicki Minaj, stumbling his way to success like a rap Manu Ginobli. 

"Feds Watching" (whose video dropped yesterday) is a game 7 performance, assisted by Pharrell's production. It's a welcome fit in the Pharrell canon, the light airy synthesizers beefed up by the thudding drum machine. 2 Chainz running down the lines "I'm so fly I jumped out the air wearing Gucci" and "I'm raw talking California rolls," with ease. Rattling off lines you swear you could write yourself but don't personality or wherewithal to try is 2 Chainz stock-in-trade, and he's trading high on "Feds Watching." The 2 Chainz tent will never be for everyone, but that doesn't stop him from making room.

"Feds Watching" will be featured on the forthcoming B.O.A.T.S. 2: Me Time, which still has no release date.