After being put through the media ringer time and time again, he’s making himself harder to understand on purpose, and I think this sound wall he’s built up has led to some interesting music. _ MG:_ I have a theory about this, actually: Keef’s increasing abstraction over the past couple years, and seeming refusal to make anything resembling a hit, has to be directly correlated with his obvious anxiety of being in the spotlight. It’s cool Keef is doing a lot of his own beats (the Bop-in-outer-space "Dear" is the standout on BFTD2) but they’re not doing his insular flow any favors.
Hearing a recent track like "Valley" gives me hope that Keef will one day return to the sing-songy approach rather than the bland straight-spitting we hear on "Feds". Keef’s command of melody and his ability to make verses as catchy as his choruses have always been his greatest strengths to me, and those traits are nearly nonexistent here. WC: You all might need to help me here, because the only conclusion I came to is Back From the Dead 2 sucks, and that’s as a fan who considers the first Back From the Dead one of the best tapes of this decade. It took a little bit of getting used to, but this is one of the better projects from Keef since his sudden rise. Though Young Chop and 808 Mafia have some tracks present, this is a showcase for Keef's beginnings as a producer. The change in Keef’s music the last couple of years has been easy to document for diehard fans, but for those who still drunkenly sing "Love Sosa", some of that charm is replaced with extremely plodding and rough production-nevertheless, it fits his rugged voice. Though Keef was recently dropped from Interscope and people have soured on him considerably this past year, he never stopped rapping. But I find Jaden’s sincerity here to be contagious it’s charming that these guys’ idea of an intro to a cypher is, "I got the tunes, we got the candles, we’re sitting in a circle." And as far as self-involved, idealistic teen music goes, I’ll take surreal hip-hop over real hip-hop any day.ĭT: Another teen exploring the limits of his musical career is Chief Keef, here with his newest tape, Back From the Dead 2. It can be frustrating to hear the patronizing worldviews of kids who have the option to drive their dad’s Benz down the PCH on a whim and spend their days harnessing quartz energies.
MG: I get why Jaden and Willow-whose vocal contributions shine on the tape too-annoy people. That sounds a lot cheesier than Jaden, a self-aware kid, delivers it: "Man this kid is absurd/ Where did he get all these words?/ Probably from them stupid books he’s reading and prints on his shirts." I can’t wait until he starts reading William S. WC: How refreshing is "Young & Reckless"? On the surface, it’s a puff-your-chest-out rap track-an economical and effective one at that-but his concept of being "reckless" is obtaining knowledge and putting it to use. It is a minimalist rap that sounds like it came out of California right before every song was required to have a "Mustard on the beat hoe." He also name-checks Jazzy Jeff, which just makes me smile.
0 kommentar(er)
