doris - earl sweatshirt

On “Chum”, the first single from Earl Sweatshirt’s debut album Doris, the 19-year-old rapper growls, “Been back a week and I already feel like calling it quits."  And can you blame him?  Earl burst onto the scene in 2010 with Earl, a remarkable 10-track project brimming with early-Eminem levels of ruthless imagery and a MF DOOM-esque eye for the abstract, chaining together absurd rhyme after rhyme in his high-pitched teenage voice.  Simply put, it was indelible: it’s unsettling to hear a teenager deadpan, "Yo, I’m a hot and bothered astronaut, crashing while/jacking off to buffering vids of Asher Roth eating apple sauce.” And then, just as quickly as the accolades and eager comparisons rained in, Earl was gone, reportedly whisked away from music and the influence of hisOdd Future collective by his worried mother.

After a massively overblown “FREE EARL” campaign and a Complex hunt to find Earl, hidden away in a Samoan school, Earl returned in early 2012 an old soul.  And, you know, with all of hip hop hanging on his next verse, his next song, and his long-anticipated follow-up to Earl.  The Earl that returned wasn’t the Earl that left, though, tweeting, “Yeah. I hope i lose you as a fan if you only fuck with me cause i rapped about raping girls when i was 15."  His first major appearance after his quiet return to music, a massive verse on the Odd Future posse cut "Oldie”, exhibited an Earl evidently much more keyed in and with less inclination for rape lyrics – plus, his voice dropped what sounded like a few octaves.  But it wasn’t until now, eighteen months after his return, that his second album is releasing.

Doris is short and tight as far as major label albums go in terms of its length, but that’s certainly not how it sounds.  The album is deliberate in its pacing, winding on slowly and seldom crawling up into any agitation - but that’s no indictment.  Earl’s perfected the art of pacing, letting his purposefulness push the album forward even if his voice rarely rises up above a low snarl.  His pace, rather than holding him back, is just a refined vessel for his emotion.  On “Centurion”, Earl is convincingly menacing, and the emotion that emanates from “Chum” derives its rawness from its restraint.  He’s a talented lyricist, and not just because he’s got a remarkable eye for structure and wording - he knows how to shift words into emotion.

However, there was no album that was ever going to satisfy the unrealistic expectations that Earl hoisted upon Sweatshirt, and Doris isn’t as unfailingly good as we all wish it had been.  But it’s still a fantastic place for a 19-year-old to work off of - Doris is still a good album, but more specifically, it’s a great album dragged down by mediocre songs and inconsistency.  Earl is alternately aggressive and subdued, introspective and chest-puffing, brilliant and thoughtless.  He doesn’t need to decide if he has to separate himself from Odd Future’s distinctive sound or whether he’s going to be a serious artist or any similar decisions just yet, but it’s a gate he’ll have to pass before he makes a truly transcendent album. Earl’s inconsistency’s not anything new, it’s also something of a motif throughout Tyler, The Creator’s work.  But the difference is that Earl isn’t nearly as unhinged as Tyler - part of Tyler’s appeal is his unpredictability.  Tyler can dart between demonic early-2000s Eminem rap and songs as absurd as “Trashwang”, and it’s almost endearing, because it’s Tyler and that’s part of his style.  The same doesn’ go for Earl because it’s simply not his image, and when he’s channeling that part of Tyler it only drags him down.

Had you asked fans who the best rapper in Odd Future was three years ago, the unanimous answer would have been Earl, and the answer probably still should be. But Earl is coming up short in an area that Tyler, The Creator, Domo Genesis, and Hodgy Beats have all been polishing: his sound.  There’s no need for Earl to pigeonhole himself into a small niche a la Joey Bada$$ and his frustrating affinity for ‘90s boom-bap, but even for an artist so young, it’s worrying to see Earl wavering between so many sounds.  For all the progress he’s made in distancing himself from early comparisons to DOOM and Eminem, Earl is still “just” churning out music.  Scanning over the tracklist I notice that in one album he’s got the grainy piano loop of “Chum”, rumbling chimes of “Molasses”, and the crawling bassline-driven “Hive”.  Hell, the Tyler-produced “Sasquatch” is practically ripped-off of Tyler’s “Answer”.

That’s not to say any of these songs aren’t fantastic, because they are.  Earl’s just being a hip hop chameleon, dragged along by his features and his producers.  If he was any less versatile, this review might be a lot more negative.  You know there’s a problem with continuity if you’re defending your artistic decisions by meta-referencing another song in your album, as Tyler does on “Whoa”.  It’s easy to forget how young Earl is. Kendrick Lamar is 26, J. Cole is 28, A$AP Rocky is 24, even Tyler is 22.  It’d be shocking to see an artist as mature and developed as Earl is capable of being still struggling with developing his own sound.  But for now, Doris is dragged down by Earl’s indecision.

Part of these problems stem from Earl trying to do too much. Being hailed as one of the best rappers alive at age 16 probably does that to you.  He’s shoved in two instrumental interludes to show off his chops behind the boards that slow down the middle of the album (spoiler alert: Randomblackdude, Earl’s producer alter-ego, isn’t quite good enough to pull this off), while throwing a painfully murky voice-filter over Mac Miller and his verses on “Guild”.  And especially since his best friend and Odd Future co-member Tyler, The Creator has garnered so much praise for his creativity and unorthodox approach, it’s no surprise Earl is heading down that path.

Often, Earl insists on half-growling, half-muttering the majority of his verses, obscuring his voice with hazy beats or a barely audible delivery.  Take “Hoarse”, where Earl raps a remarkable verse (“Fist clenched emulating '68 Olympics”) that’s so drunkenly staggering and slow that it blends into the instrumental.  When Earl’s voice cuts through, like it does on the Christian Rich and RZA-produced “Molasses”, the results are rarely disappointing.  Enunciation’s sharper, lyrics hit harder. He’s got an ear for instrumentals, but Doris is stacked with great beats that work against his style.  Earl’s at his best when he pushes his lazy drawl up a half-gear to carve through his beats, like when he raps “Hard as armed services, y'all might have heard of him/Escobarbarian, best call the lawyers up” on “Pre”. It’s not to say the hungover delivery always doesn’t work, when the whole song works with his delivery, like the languid “Sunday”, it’s excellent.  Earl has the rare ability to draw emotion and impact without shouting and snarling, but it doesn’t manifest itself every song.

Thankfully, Earl is talented enough with a mic that his delivery’s a secondary concern. It’s easy to forget just how much farther along he is than Joey Bada$$ and the like as a rapper, and Earl’s got a remarkably mature approach to his lyricism.  Much like his chief influence DOOM, there’s a distinctive quality about his verses: “Full-grown terror type, Ferragamo doo-rag/With my nigga Travy out in Maui running two-mans”.  Earl’s lyricism is densely populated with obscure references shaken into a constant onslaught of sharp syllables, and at his growling best he’s one of the best rappers alive. At the least, he’s a remarkable artist when it comes to assonance - it’s not an exaggeration to suggest Earl is one of the best ever at stacking vowels.

For a 19-year-old, Earl’s both extraordinarily incisive and vulnerable, partly resigned and partly defiant, with a gravity lurking behind his lines that even Tyler doesn’t have. On “Burgundy”, Earl’s aggressively defensive verses (“Grandma’s passing/But I’m too busy trying to get this fucking album cracking to see her”) are interposed by Vince Staples impersonating his fans and inner voices – “I heard you back, I need them raps, nigga. I need the verse, I don’t care about what you going through or what you gotta do nigga, I need bars, sixteen of 'em."  That’s a hell of a struggle for a 19-year-old, and Earl’s according passive-aggressive lashing-outs are strewn across Doris.  When Earl’s voice momentarily leaps out from his meditative murmur and snarls "Craven and these Complex fuck niggas done tracked me down” on “Chum”, it’s a perfect flash of viciousness in an otherwise meditative and brooding track. He’s a rapper immersed in wordplay with a bite.  Earl’s painfully boring on stage, but that’s a natural result of the music he makes, taking its oomph from its emotion and not the other way around.

At full cylinders, Doris is arresting.  Earl’s music is a continuous landscape - shaking drums and arresting synths and shuddering samples and snaking basslines and at its core, his sandpaper rapping.  But it’s not without its faults, because Doris is painfully inconsistent.  Earl switches between moods, subjects, and vibes so abruptly and often that Doris reads as a haphazard collection of insecure late-night drunken musings from a teenager trying to juggle fun and fame.  Phenomenal at its best, clumsy at its worst.

The last line of Doris: “Young, black, and jaded, vision hazy strolling through the night."  It’s a perfect encapsulation of the album, a frustratingly erratic record made by an artist that doesn’t necessarily have it together.  Earl’s still dealing with absentee father issues, with his grandmother’s death, of the shocks of fame, of Earl’s shadow - and he responds by making a project that’s almost defiant in its irrational imperfections.  A startling one-minute instrumental interlude at the end of "Chum”. A off-puttingly terrible verse from Frank Ocean’s cousin to kick off the album.  Vibe-shattering vocal samples (“Cut that bitch off!”).  Doris isn’t perfect, but maybe that’s kind of the point.

8/20/13.

This is one of the most important hip-hop tracks of the year.  This is why.

1. Chance the Rapper is the first “up-and-comer” (revoke my blogging license if I ever use that term again) who’s entirely post-Kendrick Lamar.  I wish I had been clever enough to come up with that description myself, and I wish I had a memory good enough to remember where I saw it.  Regardless, it’s perfect - Chance the Rapper is much more 2004 Kanye than 2012 Kendrick.  There’s something about Chance’s music that suggests offhanded brilliance and spontaneity, while Kendrick thrives off intensity and grind.  It’s in Chance’s flippant rushed cadence, his almost wryly playful internal rhyming, and his Nickelodeon adlibs.  Even here, over pensive modulated synths and James Blake wails, Chance is still Chance.

2. James Blake’s a modern electronic artist - he’s got the buzzing dubstep snap down pat, and he even has the Sampha-esque, eccentric, off-balance vocals to boot.  But like King Krule, there’s something about his music that suggests hip-hop roots and appeal.  It’s as if 40’s minimalism and darting style was slid and translated across genres, and it’s no surprise that Drake was reported to have worked on Nothing Was the Same with the Londoner.  Blake’s influences are all over the latest record from Degrassi’s finest, with his trademark drum sounds scattered all across the Boi-1da-produced “Pound Cake”.  It’ll be shocking if Blake doesn’t make larger moves into the hip-hop arena; he’s got the connections (RZA was the only high-profile feature on Blake's Overgrown album) and the mystique to appeal.

So Chance and James Blake coming together to remix “Life Round Here” (which was screaming for a rap verse in any case) is a milestone.  These aren’t just two artists that very well might represent the next few years of hip-hop: these are two artists who you’d never place together logically.  Blake is brooding and atmospheric, fading back and letting sharp rhythms and almost unintelligible vocals tell his stories.  Chance is the opposite in his bombastic delivery and approach, floating on druggy clouds and never releasing his listener from his contagious exuberance.  Chance certainly isn’t who you’d plug for a James Blake remix - maybe Drake, or even Earl Sweatshirt.  And maybe this remix might be a bit better with an artist more willing to play along with Blake’s melancholy approach. But it’s a milestone.  Fingers crossed we’ll be considering it as such come October 15th, 2015.

king kendrick snatches "control"

Kendrick Lamar is in a remarkable position – as he himself put it on his Black Hippy collective’s take on Rocko’s hit “UOENO”, “I fucked up the rap game and you ain’t even know it.”  And he really has.  He’s coming off of the best hip-hop debut album since Blu’s Below the Heavens in 2007, 2012’s good kid, m.A.A.d city, which was the most critically acclaimed hip-hop album in years and, you know, happened to also go platinum.  And he’s showing no signs of slowing up.  After releasing some of the best verses of the year - a show-stealing turn on Tech N9ne’s “Fragile”, his aforementioned verse on “UOENO”, and his last verse on the remix to “Bitch Don’t Kill My Vibe”, where he out-raps the greatest rapper ever, Jay-Z – now he’s back for more on “Control,” outshining Big Sean (and Jay Electronica) on his own song.

It’s been the music story of the week, if not month, but here’s a quick summary of what happened – Kendrick came, Kendrick saw, Kendrick conquered.  After spending two minutes weaving together his usual lyrical magic (declaring himself the King of New York and King of the Coast at one point), he proceeded to call out several rappers he sees as his competition.  But it’s a little more subtle than that.  Here’s the part in question:

I heard the barbershops spittin’ great debates all the time
Bout who’s the best MC? Kendrick, Jigga and Nas
Eminem, Andre 3000, the rest of y'all
New ni**as just new ni**as, don’t get involved
And I ain’t rockin no more designer shit
White T’s and Nike Cortez, this is red Corvettes anonymous
I’m usually homeboys with the same ni**as I’m rhymin’ wit
But this is hip-hop and them ni**as should know what time it is
And that goes for Jermaine Cole, Big KRIT, Wale
Pusha T, Meek Mill, A$AP Rocky, Drake
Big Sean, Jay Electron’, Tyler, Mac Miller
I got love for you all but I’m tryna murder you ni**as
Tryna make sure your core fans never heard of you ni**as
They don’t wanna hear not one more noun or verb from you ni**as
What is competition? I’m tryna raise the bar high

Needless to say, hip-hop exploded overnight.  Sure, Kendrick might be one of the biggest rising stars in hip-hop, but it’s been a while since a major rapper has so directly called out so many of his competitors.  Hip-hop beef has been reduced to Drake declaring “every song sounds like Drake featuring Drake” while Game and Shyne tweet diss tracks at each other.  Kendrick’s taking the name-drop to a level hip-hop buried away years ago.

But however reckless Kendrick’s shots on “Control” might appear, it’s also a remarkably shrewd move, because there’s no possible situation in which he loses.  It’s unlikely that anyone of any actual relevance or stature in hip-hop sends direct shots back at Kendrick, meaning that Kendrick’s bold claims go undisputed by anyone who matters (no, Lupe, you don’t matter).  And in the case someone like Nas really does step up and defend his city, well, that’s just a qualification of Kendrick’s assertion that he belongs in that top tier.  For now, the list of artists that have sent shots back at Kendrick read like a list of the most irrelevant rappers alive.  Where you been, Fred the Godson?

What’s most impressive about “Control”, though, isn’t Kendrick’s gall.  It’s that he structured his name-drops in such a casual, respectful way, that any serious diss back just comes off as an overreaction.  Kendrick starts off by upping the legends and paying them their dues, casually inserting his name among the top, before calling out eleven high-profile “new-school” rappers.  But that’s not the best part – the best part is that he doesn’t actually ever diss them.  It’s respectful, telling them, “I love y’all, but when it comes to hip-hop, I’m not fucking around.”  It’s gentlemanly, genuine, and somewhat imperious.  It’s clever.  The only real diss (and the one that legions of irrelevant rappers have latched onto) comes when Kendrick declares himself the King of New York, a city that he has virtually no ties to.

Now, this isn’t just any diss verse – this has the potential to be one of the most important verses of modern hip-hop.  The best responses aren’t going to be the diss tracks shot back his way, even if a couple (shouts to Joell Ortiz and Papoose) are pretty damn decent.  They’re going to come in the form of classic albums and massive sales, if his rivals really are going to step up to the plate.  Kendrick’s remarks should serve as catalysts more than goads.  The indicators of this verse’s magnitude ultimately won’t be the number of diss tracks recorded by angry New York emcees, it’ll be the quality of Drake’s album, of Pusha’s album, of Jay Electronica’s fabled Act II.  For all the elaborate lyrical insults leveled at Kendrick in the last week, the best response came from Pusha T, who tweeted, “I hear u loud and clear my ni**a… @kendricklamar”.  Let’s hope for hip-hop’s sake that the rest of Kendrick’s competition have taken his remarks equally to heart.

8/19/13.

The first thirty seconds or so of “Yaphet Kotto” is arguably the best thirty to ever emerge from Glover music-wise - Gambino’s rapidly improving as a producer (sure, Kanye-tinged, but who’s really going to be tight over drum breakdowns and wailing Manchild samples this polished), and for a few bars, he keeps the elements that occasionally made him so grating before to a minimum.  But the second he lets his voice skip up a few notes in pitch (“Headlines saying he’s leaving to be a rapper”), it’s all over. 

After the opening four bars, he drifts back into the same tropes and cliches - black disadvantages (“Cause they tryna get my demo, young white kids with money”), his acting career (“But niggas saying, ‘This dummy; he’s eating off of his acting, I mean/Who the fuck wanna be a rapper, it’s stupid’”), stilted gimmicky delivery (“Who knew every rapper with a new crew/Wanna do shit on Hulu”), annoying voice inflections (“Yeah they know me/happy face emoji”), his struggles with fame (“I wet the bed first night on the tour bus”), his shit-talkers (“The same dudes who laughing after you go/Be the same dudes who emailing asking you 'bout your show”), and dumb jokes (“Khalifa’s first name, now there’s urine on him”).  I could go on, and on, and on.  

Any other rapper and I might just dismiss him as a lost cause.  But Gambino’s capable of brief moments of brilliance interspersed among long stretches of borderline musical self-sabotage, and there’s just enough to suggest that he’s capable of much, much more than being a punchline.  He’s come a long way in his journey to merge the wry, quirky self-awareness of his first album, CAMP, with the dexterity and maturity of his mixtape Royalty.  

Gambino’s music is only so frustrating because the only thing holding him back is himself and his own pathological need to return to the gimmicks that vaulted him to relative fame.  Donald Glover has enough going for him that he doesn’t have to be a famous musician to be set for life - he’s a remarkably talented actor, comedian, and writer.  But clearly that’s not the route he wants to go, if his impending withdrawal from NBC's Community is any indication.  But unless he wants to be the hipster younger brother of Drake who likes rapping about his dick for the rest of his career, Childish Gambino will have to figure out a way to make it all work for longer than thirty seconds.  It’s like he’s insecure, returning back to what he thinks he knows works - but for a thirty-year old creative, there’s a limit to how far repetition can get you.

in defense of jay-z

It’s hard to deny that the release of Jay-Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail could have gone a bit smoother. Despite the promise of his technology-based #NewRules promotional campaign with Samsung, the planned July 4th release of the album through the MCHG Android app was almost comically bad.  In principle, it was pretty impressive - while releasing lyrics and promo videos leading up to the album’s release, Jay handed over a million copies for Samsung to distribute to its phone users for free a few days early.  But instead,  Twitter blew up in outrage over the malfunctioning app and angry Jay-Z fans around the nation who had stayed up for the album fumed.  But, you’d imagine Jay wasn’t particularly bothered - the man was certified platinum by the RIAA before a single physical copy left stores.

But the criticism rained down - well, relatively, given that this is arguably the greatest rapper of all time. Garnering lukewarm reviews from the likes of The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and AllMusic, the worst of it came from always-controversial Pitchfork.  The whole 5.8 review isn’t a fun time for Hova, but the most telling criticism comes toward the end, where Ian Cohen wrote, “Jay-Z rapping about the incomprehensible awesomeness of his life is nothing new, and the corporate synergy is hardly a novelty,” later going on to call Magna Carta “weirdly distant and safe.”  It’s a sentiment echoed across most of the reviews of Magna Carta Holy Grail - Jay’s become complacent, he’s doing the same stuff disguised as innovation.  He doesn’t care about creativity, he’s a business, man.  The man’s forty-three, his best came a decade ago.

And it’s very easy to jump on the Jay-Z hate train - hip-hop’s next class of stars are firmly entrenched (shout outs to Kendrick Lamar and Drake), and if Brooklyn’s Finest isn’t ready to keep pace, well, we can leave him behind.  And Jay-Z’s decline has been a storyline for years now, after the radio-targeted Blueprint III of 2009.  Ragging on Magna Carta is the only natural step for an aging superstar losing his feel.

But is that really what Jay-Z is anymore?  Have we already shifted from “top of the game” Jay-Z circa 2011's Watch the Throne phase to “he’s washed up” Jay-Z now?  Was it really that long ago that we were applauding Jay-Z’s bold decadence alongside Kanye West?  Sure, things have changed, but it’s hard to imagine Jay-Z’s regressed that much in the last two years.  To be sure, Magna is no Watch the Throne.  That was an unprecedented celebration of decadence by two of America’s biggest stars, and that’s a hard thing to live up to.

And at the same time, it’s hard to imagine Jay-Z’d be getting all this criticism if not for Kanye's Yeezus, which set the tone of innovation for the entire year’s hip-hop releases.  To be fair, Hova set the bar pretty damn high by declaring #NewRules, but the real culprit here is Kanye.  By flipping off all of hip-hop’s barriers to the point of absurdity (“Blood on the Leaves” is hardly even a R&B song, let alone a hip-hop one), Kanye intentionally or unintentionally extended a challenge to the rest of hip-hop’s stars - are you willing to go this far?  Clearly, Jay-Z wasn’t ready to stretch his music as far as ‘Ye (I mean, who would), but it’s doing him a disservice to dismiss him for not being as bold/dumb as Kanye.  Just because he didn’t go all in like Kanye doesn’t discredit all of the new things he’s doing with Magna. 

And there’s a lot of new stuff going on.  The 8-bit Super Mario vibe of “Tom Ford,” the beat switch-up in “Picasso Baby” from croaking drums and bass to vintage Vol. 3, or even the threatening synths across the Mike WiLL Made It-produced “Beach is Better.”  It’s all some of the most interesting stuff Jay has done in years.  Just take a look at the production credits for Magna, which ranges from old friends (Pharrell, Timbaland, Swizz Beatz) to new upshots (Travi$ Scott, Mike WiLL Made It, Hit-Boy).  Shuffle in the fact that Jay is sharper on this album that he’s been in years (the first verse of “Heaven” is spiritual Hova at his best - “Food, clothing, shelter, help a nigga find some peace/Happiness for a gangsta, ain’t no love in these streets”), and it’s hard not to be impressed by Jay’s outing.

Does Jay-Z really have to be doing anything groundbreaking when he’s making music this entertaining and clever?  He may not be pushing the envelope to the degree that re-appropriator extraordinaire Kanye West, but Jay’s making great music while switching the formula up just enough to be interesting.  Jay-Z’s sending jabs at his sport agent rivals on “Crown,” putting together hard-hitting one-minute interludes like “Versus” and “Beach is Better,” and throwing Nas, Justin Timberlake, Pharrell, and Beyonce on the same song with “BBC”.  It’s not Watch the Throne, but this is no Kingdom Come, either.

8/7/13.

“Honest Expression” is a fantastic example of how to separate out verses from skits and samples and conversation - and even though the scathing tone toward hip-pop is a lot more dated and cliche in today’s market, it’s still an excellent attack on musical commercialization.  Over a sample from the tribe (Binary Star sampling ATCQ rarely ends badly), it’s vintage backpacker lyricism from Senim Silla and One Be Lo from the turn of the millenium.

last knight - presidencee

The title track to Presidencee’s latest bears very few similarities to the soul-heavy boom-bap that producer Coffee Black provided him for his last full-length, Colombian Raw. Titled “Last Knight,” the Big L homage sees Presidencee interpolating a classic set of L bars into a hook over an uncharacteristically quiet beat - at one point, it practically fades out into drums and claps alone. But barrier-breaking aside, it’s one of the strongest records to ever emerge from the Cambridge rapper’s camp.  The churning, alleyway rumble of “Last Knight” represents both a crucial step forward and a homage to his previous work - it’s an indication that Presidencee’s not afraid to crack the mold he’s been working with for over a year, and an indication that his MCing hasn’t faltered in the slightest.

Last Knight’s structured as to be directly compared with Colombian Raw. Released exactly a year after 2012’s collaboration with Coffee Black with the same number of tracks, it’s presented as to be seen through the lens of change - in Presidencee’s words, “This was my 365 days of transformation.”  And although Colombian was strong, the comparison is a flattering one. A lot has changed for Presidencee in the last year as an artist, even beyond swapping his former name, CD, for his current one.

Now, he’s substantially more comfortable stepping outside of the sonical and lyrical realms he’s been more productive in to date, and as a result Last Knight is easily the most creative and open Presidencee’s been in his career.  Take “Healed,” where he enlists fellow Cambridge rappers Tazz AMRCA and Melz to trade verses over a souled-out beat from Tonelist, rapping, “When I heard that diagnosis, I asked God why he chose this/Kid with no sense to feel this illness knowing that I’d become hopeless.”  It’s hard to imagine a song this painfully, candidly transparent and simultaneously effective on Colombian Raw.

And that’s the modus operandi for Presidencee across the entirety of Last Knight.  Very few of the songs here would fit with the decidedly summerish vibe of Colombian Raw, and he’s less preoccupied with stuffing as many rhymes into his lines as possible.  It may be an overworn gripe to have about rap music (I’m sure Joey Bada$$ is tired of being dismissed as such), but it’s hard to deny that it hasn’t been a pitfall for Presidencee.  Much of Colombian Raw is quality, but songs like “Crash Test Dummies” might have been very powerful records with the rapper who showed up on Last Knight.

He’s not reaching to awkward vocabulary words to complete the rhyme, he’s not stretching out words to fit the rhythm, and there are few better indications of experience.  There’s not a single moment on Colombian Raw where Presidencee sounds as comfortable as he does near the end of his verse on “King,” snarling, “I’m just a kid and you kids is involved in intervals/Time me when I’m lapping, you motherfuckers invisible/If water’s talent these bitches is stuck on kiddie pools/To get specific, Pacific would fit inside of my living room.”

And it doesn’t mean that the songs that Presidencee rips without any deeper ulterior motive aren’t powerful - “Good Will Hunting” is one of the best songs on the tape, thanks to its drawling and twisted vocal samples.  But when he’s deviating from his older patterns, as he does on the bassline and mass of pitched-up samples of “Hear Me Out,” it’s excellent.  At this stage in a rapper’s career, quality’s a priority, but it’s also important that there’s potential to be realized – Presidencee’s only eighteen, and there have to be indications that his creativity is projectable.  Doesn’t have to be immediately successful, we just have to know that he won’t stagnate as an artist.

And in that sense, Last Knight also serves as a partial realization of potential through its ambition. This is the first project Presidencee’s ever released that revolves and feeds off his openness, and the real progress with Last Knight is a bit more nuanced than “he’s a better rapper”.  When I first started following Presidencee with Colombian Raw, I would never have imagined listening to songs as open and hard-hitting as “Hopefully”, where Presidencee raps, “I’m running out of money for recording time/Shit, hopefully this verse, I record in time.”

For all Last Knight’s huge steps forward, though, it certainly has its pitfalls.  Its faults are most present on concept track “Cigarettes & Perfume”, whichlacks the emotion in its uncomfortably deliberate delivery to be as powerful as its lyrics and pitch-perfect beat promise – other than the hook, Presidencee sounds as if he’s forcing the lines to fit (spiritual followup “Ms. Purple” works much better). “All Ceeing I” hits hard when it’s on, but when Presidencee delves too deep into anti-establishment topics he’s not quite as strong.  And he’s not quite beyond sinking into hip-hop clichés, as on “38 Caliber,” when he raps about “lyrical bullets” on an otherwise quality song.

But beyond its faults, crucially, Presidencee represents one of Cambridge and Boston hip-hop’s brightest points. Although the former is rife with rappers around his age of varying skill (two of the best of which who have brilliant turns on “Healed”), Presidencee’s been the most consistent and prolific. But Last Knight is important not because of Presidencee’s current status, but because of what it means for his future. He’s talented enough that he could get away with the same kind of raps and the same types of soul beats - but he’s not doing that.

Instead, he’s making increasingly risky music, as just a couple songs here fit under the leaky umbrella of "real hip-hop”.  Naturally, sometimes it doesn’t go well, but regardless, Last Knight is a testament to Presidencee’s obvious ambition.  The plinking piano riff and wavering sample behind the $wi$$ Bank$-assisted “King”, the filtered keys and the Meek Mill feel of “Do I Dare?”, the stuttering drum rolls and Clams Casino-indebted keys of “Unconscious Competence”.  They’re all regions of hip-hop that Presidencee’s rarely, if ever, ventured into, and that type of creative determination (successful or not) is precisely what he needs to be engaging with.  Especially if it’s as successful as it is on the most effective segments of Last Knight.

Grab Presidencee's Last Knight here.

<a href=“http://www.flickr.com/photos/98719659@N06/9404563956/” title=“6 by Cypher League Media, on Flickr”><img src=“http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7457/9404563956_150f22251b.jpg” alt=“6”></a>

7/30/13.