on the pulse - 2022 - #8 - coi leray, fivio foreign, vince staples, billy woods, benny the butcher, elzhi

You know, this would be the point where it might be in my best interest to just focus on the frankly stacked array of new popular albums that dropped recently and flooding my schedule, to say nothing of a few solo reviews I’ve got in reserve… but I’m in a rap mood and I’ve got more than enough to get through, especially with drops this past week, so all hip-hop episode time again, let’s get On The Pulse!

Elzhi - Zhigeist - You know, I’ve been waiting for a couple of years for Elzhi to really match what he put out with Lead Poison in 2016, and the fact that every project since has showcased a lot of that same potential but feels handicapped by production missteps or a frustrating defensiveness at the expense of more interesting content has made reviewing his albums exasperating. And yet, he’s got a new project, entirely produced by and occasionally featuring experimental jazz / neo-soul artist Georgia Anne Muldrow, and I went in with the hope that he’d deliver once again… and you know, even if I’d argue this plays very close to Elzhi’s usual lyrical bruiser template of which we’ve heard plenty of times by now, it’s probably the most I’ve enjoyed him in this lane in years! And yeah, a lot of that has to do with Georgia Anne Muldrow’s production: leaning on spacey twinkles, echoing soulful vocals, and a near constant slinky bass groove that helps underscore Elzhi’s conversational but layered flow, it doesn’t just give Elzhi more melody to work with, but also a slick, well-balanced futuristic polish that probably has him sounding the most comfortable he has in years! It feels forward-thinking in the same way artists like Yugen Blakrok are but with a richer foundation in jazz like with the horns on ‘Understanding’, or how she uses guitars on the back half of this album and while Elzhi still has a few too many complaints about how nobody makes music quite like this anymore that tilts towards respectability politics, he tempers that frustration with empathy that can feel aspirational, and that can work for what it is. And while I’m still wishing for him to bring back the more intricate storytelling of Lead Poison - the closest is the brilliantly clever ‘Pros & Cons’ - and I still think he’s clumsier than he should be when talking about women like on ‘Nefertiti’, to say nothing of the odd pacing and structure of this project where it keeps a brisk pace but still feels weirdly lumpy in spots especially towards the ending, when I’m listening to the sheer wordplay of ‘Strangeland’ or the passing Shady diss on ‘Amnesia’, it produces a pretty sweet low-key vibe, even if so much of circles around being the slept-on ‘rapper’s rapper’. Again, I’m still waiting for him to hit that point of greatness again, but this is the closest he’s been to it in a long time - check it out.

Benny The Butcher - Tana Talk 4 - So here’s something ironic: I probably heard a Benny The Butcher verse before any other Griselda member… and I think he might be the last of the main group that I’ve reviewed at length, when I probably could have easily talked about him years ago. Now some of that is just a factor of covering Griselda records - they’re often very good if not great, detailed but often feeling two-dimensional and a little uniform, and while Benny The Butcher has built a reputation as being the most accessible and arguably the most ruthless in his bars, it’s led to both steeper highs and lows. For me… yeah, Tana Talk 3 and The Plugs I Met are really damn good, even if for the latter it’s more for the guest verses and I’d skip The Plugs I Met 2 altogether, but I still think I like Conway as a more layered and insightful lyricist, but given we are getting a new Tana Talk this year, I figured I’d give it a proper chance. And… well, sure is a Grisdela album, full of the deliberately paced boom-bap with twinkling, soulful samples, drug hustling, and tasteful flexing you’d expect, but for Benny you can tell there’s been a bit of a shift. The hyperviolence has been tempered a little since he himself was shot in late 2020 - albeit not the stories of dealing to his family, which is a little awkward - and that’s forced him to take greater stock of his life with a level of introspection I didn’t quite expect but I do appreciate, from highlighting ten more crack commandments to follow Biggie’s original to a renewal of brotherhood on ‘Tyson vs. Ali’ where he and Conway laugh at those making comparisons to drive divisions, when in reality, they’re all winning and rooting for each other along the way. And you know, if you can sink into that vibe, it’s generally well-produced - I’d argue better layered and more luxuriant than Conway’s project this year, and J. Cole certainly delivers one hell of a verse, certainly better than what 38 Spesh or Westside Gunn delivered - and Benny is certainly effective as a personality… but again, if you’re looking for that added step in terms of depth or complexity, you’re not going to get it. If anything, more conventional luxury rap flexing alongside the cocaine dealing and a lack of defined hooks just begins to get repetitive outside of moments that feel out of character - I was rolling my eyes at the crypto investment line, but if you’re so dominant why are you still caring about critics or top five lists, and if you’re as independent and dangerous as you are, why did you censor Shady out of ‘Mr. Chow Hall’, the closing song? I dunno, it’s still enjoyable and exactly what you think it would be, but even if punches were pulled for good reason, they still wound up being pulled, and the album doesn’t quite wind up with the same edge. Still quite good, even if I think Conway’s album from this year is a little stronger… but not great.

billy woods - Aethiopes - At this point, I think I look forward to billy woods solo ventures more than his collaborations with Armand Hammer - not that they’re not good or haven’t been successful, but there’s a tangled, weirder texture to woods’ writing and production that especially in recent years can feel softened, so I was really excited to drill into this one. And… okay, while billy woods last two solo albums took a more personal focus, this album chooses to flip the script for something higher concept and considerably more complex, building on the messy systemic critiques that have underscored both woods’ solo albums and with Armand Hammer. He’s aware that the whole concept of ‘blackness’ and race is artificial and created by Europeans as a flagrantly corrupt societal structure - as is capitalism, even if billy woods has no patience for bougie white leftists who idolize theory over reality, or those who use the veneer of leftism for brutality - but even if these systems are corrupt or built on flagrant lies perpetuated throughout history, they are systems that are entrenched so deeply in people’s lives with tangible impacts that untangling their multi-generational roots and one’s motives acting in and around those systems creates no easy answer, especially when they seem to recreate themselves or you find yourself isolated through your success within them, a twisted and perilous asylum. The source of the most frequent samples is Kongi’s Harvest, a 1965 Nigerian play later adapted to film in 1970 that thematically has its titular dictatorial character attempt modernization of a developing nation in Africa but secretly desire a spiritual connection to the past, highlighting the cyclical nature of this domination and the echoes of these systems across time, past, present, and even future… and billy woods doesn’t really have an answer for any of it. Continuing off of Haram, not only is there a set of far more global and historical complexifiers, with imagery so shockingly vivid that it’s hard to not to get pulled into the scorching, ramshackle atmosphere, it’s also not something that works well in mixed company, the sorts of postmodern structural analysis that doesn’t make for easy slogans or organizing, humanized by plainspoken reality; it’d feel absurd if it wasn’t often so heartbreakingly bleak, with death’s inevitability as the near-constant source of tension, not an explanation for these systems but certainly a contributing factor. But amidst the high concept ideas and samples, it’s still as tactile and textured as any billy woods album, where as much as he might seek detachment for his own sanity he can’t escape the very human moments or scenes which can’t help be surreal, be they family history where he observes every very human failing or just the exasperated boredom that can come with the reality of the drug trade. And that’s before you get the production to amplify that humid, creaking vibe - with production sourced all from underground veteran Preservation, we’ve got the seedy horns and woodwinds of ‘No Hard Feelings’ and off the bass on ‘Haarlem’, the hollow clank off the stuttered echo of the drums before the bass wells up on ‘Wharves’ that gets even more grisly amidst the lo-fi vocals and harmonica of ‘NYNEX’ where Elucid, Denmark Vessey, and Quelle Chris all deliver, the desolate minor key twang amidst the crackle of ‘The Doldrums’ that gets even more sandy and haunted on ‘Christine’, the fusion of organ, textured drums, and a slightly brighter, reggae-tinged melody on ‘Versailles’ that nevertheless feels ominous and follows to add texture to the oily jingle of ‘Protoevangelium’, to that heartbreaking synth melody and soulful vocal underscoring the bassy crackle of ‘Remorseless’. Overall, it can be tough to recommend billy woods albums if you’re not going to put in the work, and this one demands it more than most, especially given its sonic palette and the nested, complicated array of references, but when it’s this tuneful, weird, and rewarding of that effort, recommending it gets easier. Great album, absolutely worth hearing.

Vince Staples - RAMONA PARK BROKE MY HEART - Honestly, I’m not sure what I even want from Vince Staples anymore. From the autobiographical sprawl of his debut to the left-field experimentation of Big Fish Theory, from the viciously focused bangers of FM! to the stripped back melancholy of his self-titled album, he’s proven a level of versatility that few can match. So when he delivered his longest album since Summertime ‘06, I wasn’t sure where the hell he’d take us this time… and I’ll be honest, I struggled with this album more than I thought I would. I mean, Vince Staples getting on his smoothest, most tuneful west coast production possibly ever stuffed full of callbacks to vintage g-funk, all about the creation of slick vibes in juxtaposition with brutal gangland violence where the exhausted depression bleeds through in every slogan and shoutout, you’d think given how I’ve praised FM! it would be right up my alley. Hell, it’s working much with a lot of the same formula, but where that album was sharply critical in its subtext of the industry that commodified that violence, this feels a bit more nostalgic but with glasses painting the scene in deep blues rather than rose-coloured, where the lingering psychological toll is more obvious. Indeed, you might think at first notice that there’s more “love” songs than you’d expect from Vince Staples, but more often than not they aren’t about women at all - ‘WHEN SPARKS FLY’ is about the relationship between a gang member and his gun, and ‘ROSE STREET’ highlights how if he’s buying flowers, they’re for dead homies, not any girl - and you can tell Vince is grappling with the lingering trauma of growing up in a violent life has prevented him from building any real connections - or in the case of ‘PLAYER WAYS’ you get the worst song on the album. And it goes further: for as much as he mentions stacking money he’s getting increasingly less pleasure out of that success - none of it feels worth it, even if he’s seen tangible results and there are plenty who would kill for what he has, and since Vince is always acutely aware of the stage, you’ll occasionally hear cheers and crowd noise pepper songs like ‘SLIDE’ where all they hear is success, not the bleak reality of what his home has cost him - after all, what’s success but guilt and stress? So yeah, it’s sharp as ever and exposes a lot of depth… so why isn’t it clicking as strongly? Well, I think part of it comes with the change in mood - not only is Vince’s delivery considerably more downbeat and tired, but he’s pairing it with liquid relaxation instead of bangers, which is effective in amplifying his own depression, but it loses the righteous fury and momentum that made FM! so brutal in its satire; you could enjoy it on the surface until you get it and the yawning horror exposes itself, and then the depths of rage help the songs become palatable again. This time… well, it’s more of a wallow, which on the one hand can set a solid, well-balanced vibe, especially if you can groove with this production like I can, but the standouts don’t feel as prominent, Vince Staples’ performance is less impactful especially alongside Lil Baby and Ty Dolla $ign, and it’s hard to escape how a lot of these notes Vince Staples has hit before, even with added notes of deconstruction. Don’t get me wrong, this is very good and it’s the definition of an album likely to grow on me across the summer… but I think another change-up might be in order, we’ll have to see.

Fivio Foreign - B.I.B.L.E. - I think some folks might be surprised I’m covering this, mostly because I’ve never claimed to be that into drill music, be it Chicago, New York, or the UK, but I’ve been keeping my eye on Fivio Foreign the past year and he did take something of a jump since he started off with rock bottom expectations, so I figured I’d give this new project a chance… and what it reminds me the most of is AJ Tracey’s Flu Game from last year, where you can tell that a potentially interesting sound in hip-hop is being ground through the safest, least interesting receptacle for it, coasting on a high budget and name guest stars rather than much else that’s all that interesting. And the contrast between the explosive rough edges of New York drill and the label architecture trying to mash this into the stereotypical overlong crossover pop rap project is stark, and somehow leading to a lot of the worst elements of both, especially in the production: in between the chipmunk vocals, you get big expensive samples from Destiny’s Child and Ellie Goulding that barely make sense with the recontextualization to be generous, but you don’t lean into their catchiness and the percussion and vocal mixing still sounds way rougher than it should alongside them; I shouldn’t be reminded of the trend of drill remixes on YouTube while thinking they might actually have better mixing! It’s also worth highlighting that the guest list is pretty damn uneven - I’ve already talked about how I don’t care for Kanye’s verse on ‘City Of Gods’ on Billboard BREAKDOWN, but I find it very telling how there’s apparently no space for other rappers in the New York drill scene, but room for verses from Lil Yachty, Blueface, A$AP Rocky, Quavo, and a DJ Khaled monologue. It creates the lingering feeling that this isn’t just sanitized, but also that it’s expected to coast on Fivio Foreign’s personality or wordplay - that’s why they gave him the budget - and… yeah, I’m not convinced, mostly because for as much as Fivio Foreign shouts through a cushion of jerky ad-libs and fast flows, outside of playing to a surprising amount of formulaic “thugs need love” songs and a few more references to god and religion than you might expect, I get very little that helps him feel distinct as a rapper or presence. Brand name porn and luxury rap flexing, sex bars that wind up a little hilariously revealing of more posturing than success, a few passing drug and gun references that show how violence is barely in his wheelhouse, more than few lines about going viral where I’m still waiting for someone to make that not sound corny, for god’s sake he’s got an ad-lib of ‘respectfully’ and on ‘Feel My Struggle’, when he talks about not responding to disses, he claims that he just starts shitting; I’m not feeling that struggle, especially on an album that feels this shamelessly corporate. Really, if I’m looking to highlight anything worth saving - given that most albums in this style are more singles driven anyway - well, I liked Coi Leray on “What's My Name”, Chloe sounds excellent on “Hello”, and Yung Bleu frankly tried way harder than he needed to on “World Watching”, but if all I can recommend are features, you know you can skip this.

Coi Leray - Trendsetter - You know, I’ll freely admit I was rooting for this one. I’m not sure why - Coi Leray’s brand of rap music has been pretty flighty and limited even within her select style, and again, there’s absolutely no reason to have much in the way of expectations for this - but I feel like if I don’t give her a proper chance on this platform, nobody else will. And thus with this debut… look, I know this might be an easy target, but I actually found myself liking this a decent bit, especially within the context of what it’s trying to do. Not saying that it’s without considerable flaws, so let’s get those out of the way first: this album has no business being twenty tracks, about half of the features are absolutely pointless and only expose the limitations of Coi Leray’s sound - Nicki Minaj on ‘Blick Blick’ - or just outright suck - Nav on ‘Clingy’ and especially Fivio Foreign on the drill disaster ‘Mountains’ spring to mind. I think the larger problem is that Coi Leray still seems to be figuring out her voice, where based off of how she bends syllables and intonations you can tell who she might be trying to mimic; everyone has already heard ‘No More Parties’ as a Playboi Carti riff and I’d argue ‘Lonely Fans’ falls into that with less success, but ‘Heartbreak Kid’ is very obviously going for a Post Malone yodel, especially opposite the guitars, and ‘Anxiety’ feels like a Juice WRLD riff. And speaking of being derivative, the content is absolutely thin in terms of the come-up story, flexing, and relationship drama; it is the definition of disposable pop trap, and the fact that it struggles to settle on a production style doesn’t help the impression that she’s probably not getting much in the way of label support or direction. And yet… why do I mostly like this? Well, when you’re stuck with generic material the best way to elevate it is the personality at the core, which I think Coi Leray has - it’s loose and playful, almost ragged at points, where the rougher production plays to her strengths and she could easily play to TikTok with songs like ‘TWINNEM’ and I wouldn’t mind! But there’s a foundation of competence in terms of delivery and flow where Coi Leray has enough expressiveness as a rapper and singer to actually sell the emotions in the small stakes scenarios she describes. Hell, what really surprised me is that she had enough intensity to swap verses and match with G Herbo on ‘Thief In The Night’ and Polo G on ‘Paranoid’ - she could have easily played deferential but no, she can sell it, a lot better than every time she tries to stiffly imitate Nicki or Cardi, the looser her bounce, the better. And even if you could argue that she’s Benzino’s daughter and got a leg up into the industry, the album plays a lot rougher, where the estrangement between them feels tangible, where any hopes of tangible success feels a lot less guaranteed and where you can tell she’s still stinging from the internet turning against her en masse - hell, that’s mentioned in the first song and I found myself wishing that she got a little more introspective with it beyond playing to the label’s formula, which is why I appreciated the gangland melancholy of the west coast bounce of ‘Too Far’ or the emo trap of ‘Anxiety’. So I’m not about to say this is deep or impactful, but I found myself rooting for it in the same way I do for Ava Max, in that there is personality and potential that needs refinement and focus that she probably will not get, even with her connections. Not great by any means, but there’s more songs I like than I don’t with more colour and solid melodic hooks than a lot of her peers, I’ll take it.