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.
The prospect of two sexed-up R&B "freakazoids" like Ty Dolla $ign and the Weeknd teaming up is preposterous. Not because it'd be too much testosterone for one locale to handle, but that they occupy entirely separate hemispheres of sex. Ty Dolla $ign is content to chirp the goofy "I could slide for it, like Nelly" in an Autotune slathered voice. At the end of the night he's looking to have a good time. The Weeknd meanwhile could care less about good times. He's the embodiment of the Oscar Wilde quote "sex is about power" and he wields that intimate power wildly. Whatever bridge is burned or heart is broken during the quest is collateral damage.
So that "Or Nah (Remix)" exists is somewhat surprising. Granted the sullen, lurching beat DJ Mustard stitched together is the type the Weeknd can live in for days. And he is perfectly at home. He delivers some of his most disarmingly explicit "pick-up lines" ever, which would read horribly here. But they're a mask obscuring a devilish grin. "Ain't nobody trying to save ya" he coos. Many still cling to the notion of a savior in a relationship, a myth the Weeknd deflates in a single turn-of-phrase. Dolla $ign comes out smelling like roses by comparison. "Girl make that ass clap for young Dolla $ign' becomes "laudatory. Once you've hit rock bottom in a relationship, there's nowhere else to go.
Ty Dolla $ign’s Beach House EP is out now through Atlantic.
How has this collaboration not already happened? Rap-weirdo RiFF RAFF has thrived on booming, minimalist beats and over the past few years no one's done trunk-rattling minimalism quite like ratchet-music producer DJ Mustard. On should've been summer-anthem "Burn Rubber" Gameboy bloops were reconstituted as the backbone of a serpentine track. And lurking just beyond the shadowy menace of the song, there was goofball glee caught up in the infectiousness of it all.
Circa 2013 there's no more viable a candidate for the title of goofball menace than Houston-native RiFF RAFF. Almost every utterance from the man also known as JODY HiGHROLLER tows the line between yuk-yuk comedy and madcap villainy. In many ways he's the rap game's Joker, and if you don't take him seriously, he's the one getting the last laugh. "How to Be the Man" (from the supposedly forthcoming Neon Icon) is chock-full of chuckles. Tiptoeing across a squeaking futuristic swing-set (provided by Mustard), RiFF RAFF prattles about swirling cups of Pink Panther and kicking back in Versace wife-beaters. Like a rickety old-playground, he's absolutely unstable. In his manic worldview, catching matinees with Barry Sanders is probable because "my whole life's a weekend". On those never-ending Saturdays, he assumes the role of Mary Poppins and envisions himself as the "white Danny Glover" or "white Eddie Murphy" depending on his outlook. If none of it seems to make sense or you'd rather pass, it's fine. As the man himself says "I don't need acceptance".
Neon Icon is tentatively slated for a 2014 release through Diplo's Mad Decent label.
